Police cases end in one of three ways. They do not end, because the matter cannot be solved or enough evidence cannot be found, and the case becomes ‘cold’, remaining technically open. Or they end with a successful prosecution and a culprit who is sentenced. Or they end because after investigation of the evidence it becomes apparent there is no point in taking it any further – another kind of cold case. Frejah’s story was of the third type.

I switched off my voice recorder. Frejah ordered more coffee.

Dreadful is the Checking

9

Dreadful is the Checking

Frejah drove on for another two hours until we came to a small hotel she said she had stayed in several times before. There were still about five hundred kilometres between us and Tristcontenta Hub. From my point of view the hotel was agreeably old school. There were no warnings about mutability, and the one key to the room was conventional.

That evening, when I was alone in my room, I made internet contact with Jo. The broadband was strong in the hotel room, and we spoke for a long time.

I told her about my meeting with Frejah Harsent in the bar.

‘She latched on to me,’ I said. ‘At first I was glad of the company. I was feeling tired after the speech. She said she had read one of my books. Later on, she told me that the trains here are running a reduced service because of strikes, and offered to drive me to the airport instead. It turned out she is a senior cop on this island. So now I’m being driven at high speed across the island, but I’m starting to feel a bit suspicious of her. I’m not entirely sure why.’

‘You sent me some weird emails last night,’ Jo said. ‘I couldn’t make sense of them.’

‘The internet was unusable. It kept dropping characters as I was typing. I was trying to tell you some of this, but I was exhausted and gave up – I couldn’t cope with it.’

‘So what’s wrong with this woman cop? Do I need to ask? A cop’s a cop.’

‘I know – I had no idea at the time she was a cop. She acted like a normal member of the audience, someone who was into crime novels. That was fine. She’s obviously highly intelligent and I liked her. I only found out today what she does. I saw her ID card: she’s at commissioner level. It turns out she has a big grudge against serfs. She implied she wants them locked up. She said she was betrayed by a couple of them some years ago. When I told her that you and I are serfs she hardly spoke to me for another hour. And she packs a gun.’

‘Cops carry guns,’ Jo said. ‘Or some of them do.’