‘They all are,’ I said. ‘Every impossible crime is a novelty. It has to be.’

‘I think you should see this, sir. The room that was locked was part of a museum, a museum of magic. The magician’s apparatus was used in the crime. It’s still there.’

The Temple of Wonders

16

The Temple of Wonders

I rode pillion on Spoder’s motorbike, wearing his spare crash helmet, a size too large, loose on my head and hurting my neck, the strap too tight and chafing beneath my chin. At the last moment I had conscientiously stuffed my laptop into my computer tote, slinging it diagonally across my back, but already I realized that it was going to be a day dominated by Spoder and having to make this sudden journey. He was not going to stop talking long enough for me to do any reading, let alone any work, now or ever. He was talking as we roared down the road following the edge of the forest reserve in the zone beyond my house. He kept swivelling his helmeted head a quarter turn, shouting at me incomprehensibly as we rushed along. I don’t know what he was saying.

We soon came to the part of the freeway skirting around the edge of Raba City, the tall shining towers of the renowned financial quarter basking in the hot morning sun. Raba was officially the clearing centre for most transactions and banking investments in this part of the world, but its reach was extending ever more widely. Financial institutions even in Muriseay, largest island in the Dream Archipelago and de facto administrative centre, were now said to be routing transactions in increasing quantities through the Raba fund houses. The Raba bourse had been the focus of share and investment dealing throughout the islands for several decades.

The activities of the finance houses brought incredible wealth and monetary power to the Salay Group, or so it was popularly believed. The reality, as I saw it as a long-term resident of Salay Raba, was that little of the wealth created in the tower zone of polished steel, mirrorglass and aluminium leaked out to the island itself. The more cynical islanders sometimes referred to the place as Robber City.

Many social problems beset Raba. There were beggars in the streets of Raba City and homeless people were found in most of the smaller towns along the south and eastern coasts. Many families lived in poverty. Disaffected minorities, originally transported in for manual work and service jobs, existed in an extensive area of poor housing on the edge of the city. Crime rates were high. Alcoholism and substance abuse were worsening problems for the civic authorities, whose offices, situated within sight of the skyscrapers of the financial district, were permanently underfunded and ill equipped.