«Five years ago?» I took a guess. «That would be when Boston formed, would it?»
«Yes,» he sighed. «Let me tell you, the JSKP board went ballistic. They considered Penny's involvement as a total betrayal. Nothing they could do about it, of course, she was essential to develop the next generation of habitats. Eden is really only a prototype.»
«I see. Well, thanks for filling me in on the basics. And if you do remember anything relevant . . .»
«Eden will remember anyone she ever argued with.» He shrugged, his hands splaying wide. «You really will have to get a symbiont implant.»
«Right.»
I drove myself back to the station, sticking to a steady twenty kilometres an hour. The main road of naked polyp which ran through the centre of the town was clogged with bicycle traffic.
Rolf Kümmel had set up an incident room on the ground floor. I didn't even have to tell him; like me he'd been a policeman at one time, four years in a Munich arcology. I walked in to a quiet bustle of activity. And I do mean quiet, I could only hear a few excitable murmurs above the whirr of the air conditioning. It was eerie. Uniformed officers moved round constantly between the desks, carrying fat files and cases of bubble cubes; maintenance techs were still installing computer terminals on some desks, their chimps standing to attention beside them, holding toolboxes and various electronic test rigs. Seven shirtsleeved junior detectives were loading data into working terminals under Shannon Kershaw's direction. A big hologram screen on the rear wall displayed a map of Eden's parkland. Two narrow lines—one red, one blue—were snaking across the countryside like newborn neon streams. They both originated at the Lincoln lake, which was about a kilometre south of town.
Rolf was standing in front of the screen, hands on hips, watching attentively as the lines lengthened.
«Is that showing Penny Maowkavitz's movements?» I enquired.
«Yes, sir,» Rolf said. «She's the blue line. And the servitor chimp is red. Eden is interfaced with the computer; this is a raw memory plot downloaded straight from its neural strata. It should be able to tell us everyone who came near the servitor in the last thirty hours.»
«Why thirty hours?»
«That's the neural strata's short-term memory capacity.»
«Right.» I was feeling redundant and unappreciated again. «What was the servitor chimp's assigned task?»
«It was allotted to habitat botanical maintenance, covering a square area roughly two hundred and fifty metres to a side, with the lake as one border. It pruned trees, tended plants, that kind of thing.»
I watched the red line lengthening, a child's crayon-squiggle keeping within the boundary of its designated area. «How often does it . . . go back to base?»
«The servitor chimps are given full physiological checks every six months in the veterinary centre. The ones allotted to domestic duties have a communal wash-house in town where they go to eat, and keep themselves clean. But one like this . . . it wouldn't leave its area unless it was ordered to. They eat the fruit, their crap is good fertilizer. If they get very muddy they'll wash it off in a stream. They even sleep out there.»
I gave the screen a thoughtful look. «Did Penny Maowkavitz take a walk through the habitat parkland very often?»
He rewarded me a grudgingly respectful glance. «Yes, sir. Every morning. It was a kind of an unofficial inspection tour, she liked to see how Eden was progressing; and Davis Caldarola said she used the solitude to think about her projects. She spent anything up to a couple of hours rambling round each day.»
«She walked specifically through this area around Lincoln lake?»
His eyelids closed in a long blink. A green circle started flashing over one of the houses on the parkland edge of the town. «That's her house; as you can see it's in the residential zone closest to Lincoln lake. So she would probably walk through this particular chimp's area most mornings.»
«Definitely not a suicide, then; the chimp was waiting for her.»
«Looks that way. It wasn't a random killing, either. I did think the murderer might have simply told the chimp to shoot the first person it saw, but that's pretty flimsy. Whoever primed that chimp put a lot of preparation into this. If all you want to do is kill someone, there are much easier ways.»
«Yes.» I gave an approving nod. «Good thinking. Who's Davis Caldarola?»
«Maowkavitz's lover.»
«He knows?»
«Yes, sir.»
The «of course» was missing from his voice, but not his tone. «Don't worry, Rolf, I'm getting my symbiont implant this afternoon.»
He struggled against a grin.
«So what else have we come up with since this morning?»
Rolf beckoned Shannon Kershaw over. «The gun,» he said. «We handed it over to a team from the Cybernetics Division's precision engineering laboratory. They say it's a perfect replica of a Colt .45 single-action revolver.»
«A replica?»
«It's only the pistol's physical template which matches an original; the materials are wrong,» Shannon said. «Whoever made it used boron-reinforced single-crystal titanium for the barrel, and berylluminium for the mechanism, even the grip was moulded from monomolecule silicon. That was one very expensive pistol.»
«Monomolecule silicon?» I mused. «That can only be produced in microgee extruders, right?»
«Yes, sir.» She was becoming animated. «There are a couple of industrial stations outside Eden with the necessary production facilities. I think the pistol was manufactured and assembled in the habitat itself. Our Cybernetics Division factories could produce the individual components without any trouble; and all the exotic materials are available as well. I checked.»
«It would go a long way to explaining why Eden never saw the pistol before,» Rolf said. «Separately, the components wouldn't register as anything suspicious. Then after manufacture they could have been put together in one of the areas where the habitat personality doesn't have total perception coverage. I'd say that was easier than trying to smuggle one through our customs inspection; we're pretty thorough.»
I turned to Shannon. «So we need a list of everyone authorized to use the cyberfactories, and out of that we need those qualified or capable of running up the Colt's components without anyone else realizing or querying what they were doing.»
«I'm on it.»
«Any other angles?»
«Nothing yet,» Rolf said.
«What about a specialist to examine the chimp?»
«Hoi Yin was recommended by the habitat Servitor Department, she's a neuropsychology expert. She said she'll come in to study it this afternoon. I'll brief her myself.»
«But you must be very busy, Rolf,» Shannon said silkily. «I can easily spare the time to escort her.»
«I said I'd do it,» he said stiffly.
«Are you quite sure?»
«OK,» I told them. «That'll do.» I clapped my hands, and raised one arm until I had everyone's attention. «Good morning, people. As you ought to know by now, I'm Chief Harvey Parfitt, your new boss. I wish we could have all had a better introduction, Christ knows I didn't want to start with this kind of pep talk. However . . . there are a lot of rumours floating round Eden concerning Penny Maowkavitz's murder. Please remember that they are just that, rumours. More than anyone, we know how few facts have been established. And I expect police officers under my command to concentrate on facts. It's important for the whole community that we solve this murder, preferably with some speed; the habitat residents must have confidence in us, and we simply cannot allow this murderer to walk around free, perhaps to kill again.
«As to the investigation itself; as Eden's personality seems unable to assist us at this point, our priority is to search back through Penny Maowkavitz's life, both private and professional, to establish some kind of motive for the murder. I want a complete profile assembled on her physical movements going back initially for a week, after that we'll see if it needs extending any further. I want to know where she went, who she met, what she talked about. On top of that I want any long-time antagonisms and enemies listed. Draw up a list of friends and colleagues to interview. Remember, no detail is too trivial. The reason for her death is out there somewhere.» I looked round the dutifully attentive faces. «Can anyone think of a line of inquiry I've missed?»