Chapter Five

Laurence left work precisely on time that day.

Which was not to say that he stopped working. Even as he drove home, his mind was on the case and not on the route. He understood the necessity of the workplace, but it did not suit him. Noise and bustle; too many people; too much distraction. While he liked and respected his colleagues—and Pettifer especially—the truth was that he did his best work on his own. While he had never sat down and crunched the numbers, he thought it entirely possible he had put in more hours alone in his apartment than he had at his desk in the department.

And what an apartment! Nobody could accuse it of being large, even for a single man, but equally, nobody could deny its efficiency. As Laurence opened the door, the soft light in the front room turned on in recognition of his arrival, revealing the clean floor, the matching furniture, the state-of-the-art stereo system. The alcoves were lined with neat rows of books, separated by a couch that faced the large plasma screen mounted on the opposite wall. An open alcove led through to a kitchen that hummed with soft blue light. Like the rest of the apartment, everything through there was top of the range, so that the room would not have looked out of place in a spaceship.

Laurence was not a rich man, and he was frugal; he spent money only on the things that mattered to him, and those things were few. At the top of that list was the place he lived, which he had spent both years and considerable amounts of money making just so. Everyone had different priorities, of course, but to Laurence's mind your home was where you started and finished the day. If it didn't make you happy—if it didn't fit you as best you could make it—then you were at as much of a disadvantage in life as you would be going to bed or work hungry.

The apartment also knew him well. As Laurence walked into the kitchen and put the bundle of papers he'd brought with him on the table, the arrival of the Bluetooth connection in his phone had already started the coffee machine working. He set up his laptop and connected it to the department's intranet. By the time he'd set some gentle music playing in the front room, the coffee was ready. He poured himself a cup, then sat down at the table and sighed happily to himself.

And then he set to work.

When he was a child, his father had often sat him down for serious talks. Laurence remembered many of them, but one in particular had always resonated with him.

"Laurence," his father said, "you are born with advantages and disadvantages in this life. We do not all share the same starting line. Now, one of your disadvantages is the color of your skin. People will judge you for what you are rather than who, and that means you will sometimes have to work twice as hard and twice as smart as them in order to be considered half as good."

Laurence had nodded dutifully.

Then his father winked at him.

"And one advantage you have is this will not be hard for you."

He read methodically through the paperwork beside him now. He remained convinced that Alan Hobbes's murder had been motivated by financial concerns—but if that somehow turned out not to be the case, he would have wasted only thirty minutes. And he favored a holistic approach to these matters; it was always better to have as much information as possible.

To understand the ailment, first understand the organism.

And so, within half an hour, he had a decent if rudimentary understanding of Hobbes's career and business interests.

There had been some surprises within the material. From the house he had visited that afternoon, he had assumed Alan Hobbes had been born into a rich family—that he was old money—and had then spent his life idling. Not so. Hobbes appeared to have been raised in relative poverty, and had made his fortune in his twenties through a series of extremely shrewd investments. Over the years, he had bought shares in a vast web of lucrative companies, and held an extensive portfolio of properties.

And yet he had not really been a businessman at all.

It turned out that Alan Hobbes had actually been Professor Alan Hobbes. He had been a senior professor in the philosophy department of the city's university, where he had received his doctorate close to fifty years ago, and then worked until his retirement a decade earlier. Which was curious. The man's financial investments had provided him with exponentially more money than his teaching; there had been no need for him to work to support himself. Which made it clear to Laurence where the man's heart had been, and implied the money he'd made elsewhere had been a means to that end.

And it was not obvious that Hobbes had cared about money beyond that. Before Laurence now were details of the man's numerous charitable donations and quiet philanthropic gestures—so many, in fact, that, at the time of his murder, Alan Hobbes had been worth far less than his grand house would have suggested to an outsider. In the years since his retirement, the man had given away more money than most people could dream of earning in a lifetime.

Laurence poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and pondered.

Who would have wanted to hurt Alan Hobbes? He gave every appearance of having been a good and decent man. Laurence looked again at the man's business dealings. There was nothing obviously suspicious there, but you never knew what deals might have been done behind the scenes, and what resentments might have ended up simmering as a result. And when it came to investments, there was Hobbes's rate of success to consider. The man seemed to have had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Until, of course, he hadn't.

It's like he knew.

Like he knew this was coming and was ready for it.

The lawyer's words from earlier. They made Laurence consider the circumstances leading up to Hobbes's murder and the actions the old man had taken.

Dismissing all his staff.

Arranging for Gaunt to turn up the next morning.

Almost as if he was waiting for his killer to arrive, his murder simply another appointment that had to be met.

Laurence slid the laptop across and performed a search for Hobbes at the university. The page loaded slowly, so while he waited he opened the online case file. It included a list of all the employees registered as working for Alan Hobbes. Updates were gradually being added as each one was spoken to, and Laurence scanned a few of the reports that had arrived after he left the office. There were several still unaccounted for, but so far everyone interviewed had confirmed what Gaunt had told them.

Laurence leaned back in his chair and rubbed his mouth thoughtfully.

The obvious question was why Alan Hobbes had surrendered his life without a fight. He seemed to have accepted his death was coming—as though, after a life of good fortune and luxury, a debt had come due and he had been resigned to paying it.

Like he made a deal with the devil, Laurence thought.

Not literally, of course. Laurence was not a religious man. Even if he had been, he suspected such a deal would be functionally impossible—that the devil would most likely end up exasperated, throwing his little red hands in the air at the flood of applications. But figuratively there was something there. Especially when Laurence remembered the look of pain and sadness etched on the dead man's face.

Laurence's cell phone rang.

It was still in his jacket pocket. He fumbled for it, saw it was Pettifer, then accepted the call and held the phone to his ear.

"Hello there," he said. "You have reached your boss. Please leave a message after the—"

"You're not my fucking boss, Laurence."

"Technically no, but we both know the truth deep down."

"Working hard?"

"Of course," he said. "Yourself?"

"Not only working hard but working smart," she said. "Check your in-box."

"Hold the line. Your call will be answered as soon as—"

"Just do it, Laurence."

With the phone still pressed to his ear, he reached for the laptop and scrolled through until he found the email. When he opened it, he read the message twice and then looked down at the attachment.

Hobbes had a camera installed inside his apartment.

Laurence opened the footage Pettifer had sent him.

The security camera in Hobbes's apartment had been located high up above the door. He supposed that was some consolation for him not having spotted it at the time—and, of course, for all her talk of smartness, Pettifer hadn't noticed it then either.

Nevertheless.

He was still kicking himself a little.

When the video opened, he noted the time stamp on the bottom. Assuming the information was accurate, the clip had been recorded the day of the murder, beginning a little before eight o'clock at night and running for approximately five minutes. Pettifer had explained it was the last available footage that could be retrieved from the camera. Which gave Laurence pause. It seemed a step beyond the capabilities of modern technology to imagine the surveillance system had simply winked out of existence at the same time as its owner.

All will be revealed, he told himself.

He pressed play.

He was presented with a grainy black-and-white image, the recording disappointingly low-resolution. The angle was decent enough, at least, taking in most of the main room. Hobbes was already in situ, lying in the bed where he had been found today. But he was alive here. The quality was just good enough for Laurence to make out the covers moving gently over the old man's chest. He appeared to be sleeping, with his head tilted back a little and his mouth slightly open.

Laurence watched as a line of static rolled slowly up the screen. When it reached Hobbes, it seemed to make his body convulse as it passed over him, his expression momentarily twisting into something else before the static moved on, leaving just his peaceful, sleeping face again.

There was no sound.

No other apparent movement in the room.

As another roll of static crept up the screen, Laurence's attention moved from the old man on the bed to the archway in the wall behind him. On-screen, the blackness there seemed even more absolute than it had while standing in the room. He remembered the faint rush of cold air that had been coming from it earlier.

A figure emerged suddenly from the darkness of the archway.

Laurence paused the video and peered carefully. The figure was little more than a pale smear, like an animal caught on a trail cam, and he imagined most of the frames would yield similar results. There might be better evidence in motion though, and so he restarted the footage.

The figure cautiously stepped out of the darkness of the archway. With the low quality, Laurence could tell that it was a man but not much more than that. He saw what looked like jeans. Some kind of jacket. Dark hair. And he appeared to be holding something. Laurence turned his head to one side but couldn't make out what it was—only that the man was clasping it between his hands and pressing it to his stomach. Whatever it was, it wasn't big. It didn't look heavy. And yet there was something about the way the man was holding it—almost nervously—that suggested it weighed on him in a different way.

The object glinted slightly.

Is anything missing?

Laurence remembered the way the lawyer had glanced at the archway.

I don't know yet.

He watched as the man stepped over beside the bed and stood there for a few seconds, staring down at Alan Hobbes. Laurence cursed the lack of audio. Was the man talking to Hobbes? He was turned away from the camera, so it was impossible to tell. If so, there was no response from the old man. Hobbes appeared to remain asleep, lying there in the bed with the covers over his chest gently rising and falling.

A line of static rolled over the pair, making them both jitter.

The man turned away from the bed and walked toward the door, his head bowed, his face entirely out of sight.

And then he disappeared from view.

Damn it.

Laurence leaned back. It was perhaps too much to hope that the murder had been caught on camera, but the footage might at least have had the decency to offer a viable view of a suspect. As things stood, he didn't think they would get anything from it on that score. But. Accentuate the positives. This had been recorded well after members of staff were all supposed to have been dismissed, and even if it was low quality, it might still be good enough to identify one if they had come back.

Laurence stared at the screen.

There were only a few seconds left of the recording, and he watched as another roll of static began its steady ascent up the screen. Laurence leaned forward and peered more closely as it reached Alan Hobbes.

And then the entire screen was filled with a face.

Laurence pulled back—his heart leaping from the shock. The whole of the footage was white for a couple of seconds, before an eye moved into view, filling the screen, looking this way and that, and then the man leaned away from the camera, his entire face clearly visible now, and stared directly into the lens for the briefest of moments.

And then the screen went black.

His phone rang.

Laurence glanced down, his heart beating hard. Pettifer was calling him back.

"So," she said when he answered. "What do you think?"

"I think give me a minute."

"No," she said. "Please just tell me how good this is."

He ignored her and played the footage again, pausing it toward the end. The frame gave about as clear an image as it was possible to get. The man in the footage was about thirty years old, with pale skin and earnest-looking eyes. Long hair. A spread of freckles across his nose and cheeks.

And a scar that ran down his face from the side of his eye to his chin.

Tell me how good this is.

"I'll do you one better," he said. "I'll tell you who this is."