Saskia Brandt: Deja Vu Part 1

Deja Vu.

The Saskia Brandt Series.

IAN HOCKING.

During his fifteen-year writing career, Ian Hocking's fiction has been published extensively, both online and in print. He graduated with a degree in experimental psychology from the University of Exeter and now lectures in psycholinguistics, philosophy and research methods at Canterbury Christ Church University and the Open University.

'A new voice in Brit SF that we should all be taking an interest in.'

Joe Gordon, Forbidden Planet International 'Larger publishers take note.'

The Guardian.

Deja Vu.

Saskia Brandt ill.u.s.trated by Pia Geurra.

Dedication.

Fur Britta.

Chapter One.

Berlin: September, 2023.

Saskia Brandt emerged from the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate and narrowed her eyes at the evening. There: the mirrored spandrels of the Federal Office of Investigation. Minutes later, she strode inside. She crossed the inlaid insignia a Ex tabula rasa a and dumped her ceramic revolver in a tray. Huffed. Stepped through the detector and retrieved the gun while the guard folded his arms and made her feel exposed with her hair down, absurd in her casual skirt, short in her flip flops.

'You should be on holiday,' he said, smiling.

'I should be on holiday.'

Ghost-touched by the air conditioning, her sweat dried cold. She entered the lift, which rose on a piston and opened high in the building. Her office was one among dozens. Its plaque read: Frau Kommissarin Brandt. She licked her thumb and squeaked away a plastic shaving from the B.

Inside was a black desk on an ashy carpet and vertical blinds that could wink Berlin away. A cubicle formed by free-standing screens marked the extent of her secretary's territory. The cubicle was empty. To the right, beyond some abstract art, were her kitchenette and bathroom.

The office was uncomfortably warm. Saskia approached the desk and adjusted the position of its antique blotter while she thought. She stroked a framed photograph: her English boyfriend, Simon. Her ex-boyfriend of - she noted the sunburnt skin around her watch - five hours and twenty-two minutes, allowing for the time difference. She turned the photograph face down and set her watch to Berlin time.

'The air conditioning is broken,' announced the nameless computer that haunted her office. Two cameras hung in the dark corners of the ceiling. Each drew a bead on her mouth.

'Why?'

'I do not know. An engineer has been called. If you are hot, take a cold shower.'

Saskia turned to one of the cameras. 'Thanks for the advice.'

'You're welcome.'

'Where is my secretary? Why didn't she report it?'

'Your secretary is on holiday.' The computer paused. 'You should be on holiday too.'

Her boyfriend had been cooking pasta for a romantic meal when the recall came through and, without discernible romance, had thrown the boiling pot across the room. A stray ta.s.sel of spaghetti had burned Saskia's forehead with a question mark. She had let him fuss and make his apologies, but it was over the moment that burn mark bloomed. She did not say good-bye. In the taxi to the airport, she cried.

She entered the bathroom, drew some water and splashed it over her forehead. Then she went to the kitchen. A microwave, cupboards, a coffeemaker and a large refrigerator. Her eyes stopped on the refrigerator. It promised cold, sparkling mineral water. She pulled the handle and her secretary rolled out, taut and twisted, dead joints creaking as she unwound. Their eyes met and Saskia crouched, her attention moving from those dry orbs to the hole below the secretary's left ear.

As Saskia held the shoulder of the corpse, she paused in the wake of a thought: she could not remember the secretary's name. How could that be? Saskia was tired but not exhausted. There was no reason to forget the woman who had worked in her office since the spring. Saskia had last seen her late on Friday afternoon, two days before. Why had the body been hidden? The question and its answer collided: she was being framed.

Saskia returned to her desk. Before she could query her computer, it asked, 'Who are you?'

'I am Kommissarin Brandt and you are my office computer. Are you malfunctioning?'

There was no reply. Instead, Saskia heard the swish of the computer's local components, which were housed within her desk. 'Computer, what are you doing?'

'I am a.s.sembling a profile for Kommissarin Brandt.'

'You shouldn't have to. Run an internal systems check.'

'Check complete. No problems found.'

'My voice print was working a few minutes ago. Why would it be unavailable now?'

'It may have been deleted accidentally or deliberately. The latter is likelier.'

'I see.'

Had there been a break-in? Could it be the same person who was trying to frame her?

'Your refrigerator reports that it is broken,' the computer said.

'It would.' Saskia leaned on her desk and looked into the sky. 'My secretary was inside.'

'I do not understand. Why would your secretary be inside the refrigerator?'

'Do you know why?'

'I do not understand. Why would your secretary be inside the refrigerator?'

'We are no longer having a conversation.'

Herr Hauptkommissar Beckmann wore a grey suit with a lemon-yellow flower whose name Saskia could not recall. He was holding on for an FIB pension and the long shadows of a twilight in Croatia. She liked him.

'No milk, sorry,' she said, pa.s.sing the coffee. 'Perhaps you could fill me in.'

Her boss had a habit of putting his tongue tip into a cup before he drank, and his eyes had the unsettling regard of an arch prosecutor. He swallowed. 'In the early hours of this morning,' he began, 'your computer sent an enquiry to a refrigeration subcontractor concerning your fridge. I intercepted the e-mail and sent a man to investigate. Why? You had a new fridge fitted last year. A simple statistical test indicated that the probability of it failing within five years was less than one in twenty. I sent the man around as a precaution. He's from the Moscow office, originally. Klutikov.'

Saskia looked at the picture of Simon, the blotter, the plant in the corner and the secretary's little desk. She imagined a man and his gloved fingers.

'You believe me, don't you?'

Beckmann paid out a silence the length of two coffee sips.

'Let us be rigorous. Let us be rational. Here are the facts according to Klutikov. Your secretary was killed on Friday evening. She died from a single stab wound below the ear. The blade was at least six centimetres in length. The wound led to a fatal brain haemorrhage. The deceased -'

'Mary,' Saskia blurted, excited by her victory over forgetfulness. 'Her name was Mary.' She looked at the fallen photo-frame. 'Why did the murderer put her in the fridge?'

'A large, hot object will put a strain on the fridge's gas compressor.'

Saskia nodded. 'That links with the broken air conditioning problem. It made the air warmer and forced the fridge's compressor to work harder.'

'Inevitably, then, the fridge will break. The next step is quite predictable. Your computer will send a request to have the fridge examined and repaired. The repair subcontractor will then send an engineer for Monday morning. He will discover the body and, as simply as that, you will be framed.'

Saskia sat against the desk. She was unused to the skirt, and her thighs rubbed.

'Of course. I was not due back until Tuesday, after the bank holiday. But why frame me so elaborately?' Her eyes jumped to his. 'I have the answer. I left the office around six o'clock on the Friday evening. If it could be proved that the act happened later than that a which it did, because Mary was still in the office when I left a then my alibi would have been provided by witness statements from the taxi driver and the airline staff. By storing the body in the fridge, the time of death is less predictable. It would leave open the possibility that I murdered Mary before leaving for London.'

'So why would you, in your role as a murderer, put the body in the fridge?'

'I could store it here and carry out the pieces over the next weeks.' Saskia stopped her thoughts. She said, 'This is conjecture, of course.'

Beckmann placed the empty cup on her blotter. Saskia looked at it, then moved it off.

'And your postulated motive, Frau Kommissarin?'

'I have no idea.'

'I must tell you that Klutikov searched Mary's pockets and found photographs of a lesbian nature.'

Saskia took a breath and held it. 'I see. A lover's tiff.'

Beckmann studied her expression. 'Frau Kommissarin, it is 1:15 pm. The technician will arrive at 8:00 am tomorrow.'

'How do you think we should proceed?'

'We? I told you that I don't want the Internal Section parachuting in here unnecessarily. Handle this yourself. If you cancel the technician and the murderer is monitoring your communications, he will be forewarned. I suggest you retain your only advantage: his belief that he has succeeded. Now listen to me. If I don't have a satisfactory answer by the time the repairman arrives, the Internal Section will be activated. You don't want that. What with their methods. If I'm satisfied you've identified the perpetrator, you and Klutikov can run him down.'

Saskia stared, unfocused, at the wall. 'If I'm convicted, the courts will have me killed.'

'After the Richter ruling, you might be lucky and just have your brain wiped. Street-cleaning isn't so bad. They wear epaulettes.' Beckmann put the flower to his nose. 'Thanks for the coffee.'

Chapter Two.

Hauptkommissar Beckmann had been gone for an hour. In that interval, Saskia had checked the security recordings of the cameras in the foyer. The recordings had been deliberately scrambled. While she worked implication after implication, two cleaning spiders entered her office. She watched them groom the carpet around her feet - touches to map her calf - and climb the desk, lift the blotter's corner, shoo away the dust. The spell broke when a spider approached the kitchen.

'Computer, get rid of them.'

The spiders slipped under the door like messages and were gone.

'How about some Vivaldi?' she asked.

'I don't understand. Would you like to improve your accuracy by reading some prepared training texts?'

'No. Play me some music by the composer Vivaldi.'

'Which symphony?'

'The Four Seasons.'

'Which piece?'

'Winter.'

It played.

'Louder.'

Louder.

A tear formed in her left eye. She looked at the photograph of Simon. His eyes flashed green. Saskia turned to the blinking diode of a camera high on the wall. 'Computer, you use those cameras to disambiguate voice commands, correct?'

'Yes, a multiple constraint satisfaction framework is -'

'Do you store the video? Show me.'

'Yes, I use it to help process difficult utterances.'