CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
On Saturday morning Greg parked the Duo in a side street just outside New Eastfield, and handed over a fiver to the local teeny-bopper extortionists before walking out into the plush precinct's tranquil boulevards. He'd used the Event Horizon card to splash out on new light-grey slacks, blue canvas sneakers, and a jade-green pure wool Stewart sweater. His usual jeans and T-shirt would've aggrieved the private police squad which New Eastfield's residents employed.
One major contributory factor to Peterborough's post-Warming prosperity had been its burgeoning maritime links. The Nene allowed cargo ships to sail right into the heart of the city. They docked at a new port and warehouse complex which had sprung up in the place of the old shopping precinct and Queensgate mall.
In addition to the commercial shipping, an armada of nearly seven thousand small boats had set out from the Norfolk Broads as the Antarctic ice melted, converging on the city. They'd anchored around the island suburb of Stanground; their moorings evolving into a hugely complicated maze of jetties built out of timber scavenged from the roofs and floors of deluged buildings out in the Fens. The boats at the centre were trapped there now, ten years' worth of rubbish clogging the water around them, embedding them in an artificial bog. He'd heard that around ten thousand people lived in the sprawling boat-town. The actual figure was uncertain, Stanground's inherent chaos made council hall governance nigh on impossible. An aspect which the residents took full advantage of. The narrow twisting channels were Peterborough's main haven for smugglers, pumping hard currency Eurofrancs into the city's economy.
Finally, there was an impressive squadron of pleasure craft. The potential of the city's industrial vigour, coupled with the kind of seedy spice endemic to monstrous overcrowding, proved a powerful attraction to Europe's ship-borne rich. People who ran their mini-empires of financial trusts and venture projects from floating gin palaces. They were a flock in eternal migration, never in one port long enough to qualify for the taxman's attention.
They had their own marina in New Eastfield, north of the Nene's main course. The quays were concrete, substantial, immaculately clean. Every requirement was catered for, from stores supplying five-star food and maritime gear to a not-so-small dry dock capable of providing complete refits.
Greg hit the marina itself around eleven; a whole community of clubs, sports complexes, shops, restaurants, and pubs along the waterfront, open to permit holders only. Royan had loaded his ID into the membership computer. The promenade was a kilometre long, built from huge granite cubes. Five quays stabbed out into the deep harbour that'd been dredged for the yachts of the mega-rich.
A gauzy layer of cumulus cloud diffused the sun into sourceless light overhead. The humidity this close to the Fen basin approached steam-bath levels.
He found Angelica's, a single-storey flat-roofed emporium opposite the centre quay where the Mirriam was berthed. It was a food hall selling wholesale quantities of nouveau delicacies he didn't even know how to pronounce.
Greg walked down the cul-de-sac side alley and found the delivery bay's metal roller-door at the rear. Beside it, embedded in the bricks, was a series of metal rungs. He started to climb.
The uniformity of the solar-collector roof was broken by two satellite-dish weather domes and three big conditional stacks, their fans spinning silently. Dead centre was a box structure of slatted wooden panels which housed Angelica's water tanks. Greg crouched down and scuttled over to it. One of the slat panels was hanging loose. He pulled it aside and slipped in.
The panel opened into a narrow gap between two big water tanks, one and a half metres wide, three long. There wasn't enough headroom to stand up, and he had to hunch down with his hands brushing the floor. What space there was had nearly been used up.
At the far end, various photon-amp lenses were poking through the slats, their cables feeding a jumble of compact gear modules. Weird little halos of coloured light cloaked five miniature flatscreens which flickered with the image of the good ship Mirriam, half covered with red digital read-outs.
Right in front of the entrance panel was a pile of drink cans and food wrappers. Greg nearly put his foot in an adult-sized potty that had been connected in to Angelica's plumbing by a ribbed flexible pipe. There was only one smell: ripe human.
Between the rubbish and the gear was a thin yellow sponge mattress. Suzi was lying on it, wearing blue shorts, soaked a shade darker by sweat. Her mauve spikes had drooped in the torrid heat.
She peered at him out of the gloom. "Christ, 'bout time you showed. See what we've been suffering for you."
"All in a good cause." He stepped over the potty and squirmed on to the mattress beside her. One of the gear modules poked sharply into his back.
"Cosy." Suzi smirked spryly. "You wanna do it? There's enough room if you ain't into anything too kinky."
Greg was suddenly very aware of her tough little body pressing against him. "We'd die of heat exhaustion."
"Yeah, tits the size that new girl of yours was stacked with, can't say I blame you."
Greg nearly started to protest, but thought better of it. "I hope you're not handling the observation all by yourself. This heat is bad for you. Seriously."
A growl rumbled up from the back of her throat. "Shit no. It's four-hour shifts only up here. The rest of the squad is spotted round the marina, some of them signed on with the company that's got the franchise to keep the promenade clean. And there are another two in hire cars for tailing Kendric's Jag when he goes runabout. We've been drawing up a habits and behaviour profile. Just like you taught us, right? Knout the man, get to understand him. No hassle in that, talk's pretty loose around here. One of us made barman at a pub the crews use, nothing they like better than slagging off their owners."
"Sounds good so far. What have you got for me?"
Suzi wriggled a hand free and pointed at the screens. "This Kendric, he's a fucking Martian. Not of this earth, y'know? The lives these yacht people lead. Un-be-lievable! Tell you something, though, no way is he a card carrier. I mean, the PSP's local chairpricks, they had it all, right? Eternal junket time. But they haven't got nothing compared to this geezer. The money he's got. He wouldn't last five minutes if they ever got back in power."
"Ah." He'd wondered about the peak of vexation in her mind. "No, Kendric's not Party. But my guess is that he's involved in a spoiler against Event Horizon. And with the economy all shaky with inflation right now, Event Horizon taking a tumble would be serious bad news. The only people who'll benefit are the PSP relics in legitimate opposition. That good enough for you?"
"What's the spoiler?"
"Ministry of Defence. Ultra-hush."
"Figures," she agreed without much enthusiasm. "Son told us Kendric was plugged into big-league corporate operations."
Greg studied the various images on the five screens. Mirriam was the biggest yacht in the marina. Sixty-five metres long, gleaming silver-white, with jet-black ports. Crewmen stripped to the waist were visible, washing down the wide afterdeck. "Is Kendric on board right now?"
"Yeah, as always. Believe me, nothing at all happens in this marina before noon. They're all too busy sleeping off last night's orgies. Right now, it's business time for Kendric. He holds a couple of conference sessions in the mid-deck lounge each day. There's a whole bunch of squarearse lawyer types who turn up each morning to see him. Don't know what they rap about in the cabin, Mirriam's ports are screened, but anything they say out on the deck we've got on a memox cartridge for you." Her eyebrows puckered up. "Isn't that Julia Evans girl in charge of Event Horizon now?"