Inspector Rames

Chapter 2

"You're my new sergeant?" I repeated for the third time as we left Block Seven again.

"Yes." Alex's lips quirked. "Am I not what you were expecting?"

I supposed I should have realised he was my sergeant sooner. The moment I'd crashed headlong into him, it had just been written in Sod's Law.

"I'm not sure what I was expecting," I said, "other than to meet you at the police station later this morning."

"You're not what I was expecting. You're young. And..." His gaze darted to my hands, balled into fists at my sides. "Feisty. Although you don't look it now."

Drenched in rain and sweat, and with my heart rate back to normal, I was shivering. I shrugged and stuffed my fists in my pockets. "I'm sure I'll warm up once I've added a forensic suit to my layers."

Although it had stopped raining, the city was still dark: the weather simulator was mimicking the short days and long nights that had characterised winters on the surface. We took a shortcut down the road I lived on, sticking to the shadows at the fringes.

The flats in my neighbourhood still had their Christmas holograms turned on, showing Santa in his top-of-the-range turbo sleigh flying across the brownstone walls. A beggar was huddled against the bricks of the next block after mine, directly beneath a reindeer. He'd found a second-hand currency machine that looked older than me. I stopped and stared into the eye-scanner, giving him the money I'd been intending to spend on coffee before work.

It took us two minutes to reach Terra Road, which was now secured behind a reel of electro-tape. Decrepit flats rose towards the concrete sky. Houses were a long-lost concept in Britain's cramped cities.

A narrow alleyway cut into the middle of the road, and more blue-and-white tape had been strung around plastic cones in front of it. PRBs were working on the other side, searching the crime scene with the microscopic cameras in their eyes.

The tape stopped short of the doorways to two buildings on either side of the alley. One was unmarked, presumably a block of flats. A cluster of neon signs climbed up the other. Implants4U, Flash Café, Ryker's Repairs...

In the middle of the buildings, the electro-tape, and the PRBs, a woman was sprawled on the ground. I could only see the shape of her in the shadows, and I imagined that when the night had been at its darkest, she wouldn't have been visible at all.

Alex went to get an overview of the situation from the PRBs, while I zipped myself into a forensic suit and entered the crime scene.

Once my eyes had adjusted to the dim light of the alley, I realised it wasn't just PRBs with the victim. The body was being examined by a human woman. A different robot was standing at her side: sleek and white, with APT (anatomical pathology technician) stamped on its forehead. Both turned around as they heard our approach, and the woman's full lips curved into a smile. "Good morning, Amber."

"Cassia," I grunted. Good morning was a stretch with no caffeine. Alex was approaching, so I introduced him. "This is Detective Sergeant Alex Sullivan. Sergeant, this is Doctor Cassia Grant."

My older, married sister shook hands with Alex. It occurred to me that all I knew about the man I was introducing was his city of origin, Rosek, which was where my old sergeant had buggered off to with a promotion as a detective inspector. But I could tell from his powerful stance and the clear look in his eyes that he was no rookie to a gruesome crime scene -- which was just as well.

The victim might have once been beautiful: her skin was olive-coloured, her hair was curly and dark, and she had a smooth youthfulness about her face. But her throat had been slit, and she was lying in a stagnant pool of blood. Flaps of skin hung down her neck.