Her Fugitive Heart Read online

  This was poisoning of the well, karmic payback for anyone who touched it. Nobody who used this program had good intentions, ever.

  And Olivia did this simply because she was bored. She indulged in an epic bout of digital social engineering to pass the time. Even though I didn’t actually do anything other than talk the client through what was done, once again I’d unleashed chaos upon the world. I didn’t do any of this or tell the others to do it, but I was party to all of it. Kali applauded behind my shoulder.

  There would be other programs that mapped faces into videos to create fake videos of things that never happened, of course. The cat was well out of the bag. We were going to have our hands full with clients coming to us for help to prove these videos were fake, not just porn videos but also videos showing them doing things they never did, intended to fit them up. Politicians were getting done with their faces manipulated into inflammatory speeches they never made. They would come running to Roger in a panic, begging him to help prove it was bollocks. Roger was more than happy to lend a hand, of course.

  “More business!” Roger said, rubbing his hands. “More favors done and owed! More friends in high places!”

  More of our New Normal.

  Bagalamukhi, goddess of deception and truth, danced around us whenever we got a case involving faked videos. She wore bright, vibrant colors in her designer clothes, and laughed in delight, reveling in the Internet feeding her more power than ever. She would stand over Benjamin and Olivia’s shoulders as they worked away at their computers deciphering fake videos.

  That this was considered normal and tame at Golden Sentinels spoke volumes about how far we’d come since I first started there. In the next few months, I would come to wish the insanity we dealt with in the rest of the year were this normal.

  THE ENGLISH COUNTRY MANOR MYSTERY

  ONE

  “Do you ever wonder if we might be in the End Times, Ravi?” Mark Oldham asked.

  “That’s not really something I think about,” I said.

  “Look around us. It feels like we’re all teetering on the edge of disaster. Economy’s in the toilet. People going batshit in the streets at random. Politicians selling everyone out, even though they hire us to clean their dirty laundry and find dirt on their opponents . . . What do your gods say about that?”

  “The gods don’t tell me anything,” I said. “And I don’t make it a point to ask them.”

  “You really should talk to them, Ravi,” Mark said. “Get closer to them.”

  “Don’t start,” I groaned. “They only make things more cryptic and confusing. And that makes me even more paranoid than I already am.”

  “So what do you do with them, then?”

  “It’s more like what I don’t do.”

  “Well, that’s already your default mode, mate.”

  “Mark, my main priority is to not piss them off. Anyone with half a brain knows not to piss off the gods. It never ends well.”

  “Fair enough.” He shrugged and took another drag on his spliff before passing it to me.

  “And I’m an atheist,” I said. “They’re just in my head.”

  “I like the way you parse that contradiction,” he said.

  Contradictions certainly defined my life. I wanted to be a good bloke, but my job was to do lots of bad things. I wanted a quiet life, but I was always diving face-first into chaos. As a good Hindu boy, I was expected to marry a nice girl, yet my wife-to-be was an adrenaline junkie and barely recovering sex addict in the deceptive guise of a blond English Rose. I’m an atheist, yet my head was filled with gods who wouldn’t leave me alone. I was afraid I was going mad, yet I often found myself in situations where I felt like the sanest man in the room.

  Story of my life.

  Where Mark and I were, you wouldn’t think the world was in chaos or falling apart. We were in the garden of a ten-acre estate owned by Stephanie Beam, widow of the late rock star Alfie Beam, who had bought this mansion and its very large garden in bucolic Sussex, half an hour away from Brighton. It was very much the picture of England’s Green and Pleasant Land, far away from the woes of the present. Walking around this place, you could make yourself believe there were no council estates in London burning down, no amateur bombs going off in the Tube, no cars careening into crowds in tourist spots, no hypocritical government teetering on the brink of collapse, no surprise hurricanes sweeping through the British Isles, no American presidents with a screw loose threatening nuclear war. If Roger had had his way, he would have moved into this estate and turned it into his personal theme park for Fantasy England, entertaining foreign guests for business deals.

  And dancing along the garden with cocktails in their hands and Bluetooth headsets in their ears were the gods, dressed in expensive designer evening wear as if they always belonged here. They were waiting for the guests to arrive and the show to begin. Lord Shiva was leading the reveries. Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and abundance, was the most at home here in her golden evening gown. Ganesha looked perfectly natural with his elephant head and tuxedo. They looked ready to star in a Noel Coward play. Bagalamukhi was drinking a cocktail and having a laugh with Louise Fowler.

  That’s right, Louise, Julia’s late sister who died years ago before she could complete transition to a woman. It was because of her death that I had met Julia, on the first case I was the primary investigator on at Golden Sentinels a few years ago. Louise was a popular model and media personality who managed to keep secret that she was transgender all the way to the grave. Julia and their parents made sure of that. And now she was back. I saw her standing with my gods one morning in our kitchen when Julia and I were having breakfast, and realized she was here to stay. She wasn’t a ghost. I didn’t see ghosts, only gods. She was so popular when she passed away that you could say she had become a god. I got over my initial surprise to suss out that she was Julia’s god, after all, so why wouldn’t she be around Julia? Louise the god was the best, idealized version of her: she was fully transitioned. Her tits were gorgeous, her hair was perfect, her makeup was flawless, and she wore the latest fashions with panache, as befitted a supermodel. She seemed to sense when I was getting particularly anxious, and while the gods laughed, she would smile kindly, offer a reassuring wink, and say something funny to break the tension. That was what Julia said Louise was like. She had a talent for putting people at ease, making them feel welcome. Perhaps I conjured her as a counterpart to the gods. Sometimes I could swear Julia could see her, too. She seemed to behave as if she knew Louise was there, but I didn’t ask her about it, because I didn’t want to think about what it meant if other people could see my gods. It would mean they were not just my gods. They were the gods. What if it was Julia’s desire to have her late sister and best friend near her that summoned Louise into my sight? Whenever Julia and I worked a case together and went out to interview witnesses, Louise would come along and stand next to us like a partner, unlike the gods who stood to the side and watched like a touring audience.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ve been rambling a lot lately when I try to get my thoughts and memories of the past year down on paper. How, you might ask, did we end up getting the run of a large country mansion? This was something our boss Roger had been planning for a long time and was finally putting into play.

  TWO

  “Right, children,” Roger had said at the office weeks ago. “I’m going to need you all on for this. I’m going to be throwing a weekend get-together with some friends new and old.”

  “What do you need us there for?” I asked.

  “All my plans, children,” Roger beamed. “All the plans I’ve been laying for over three years, all the friends I’ve been makin’—”

  “All the arse you’ve been kissing,” Cheryl muttered.

  “It’s all coming together,” Roger said, ignoring her. “I’m throwing a little get-together, a little party for our clients, former clients, people I’ve been doing favors for in the last five years, to bring them all to
gether for a weekend of hobnobbing.”

  “To what end?” I asked.

  “I have a business proposal and I’m looking for partners.”

  “Partners with lots of dosh,” Olivia said.

  “Very good! Can I get through my announcement without you children interrupting? Daddy’s talking.”

  Ken and Clive snorted from their chairs, and aside from that, everyone clammed up.

  “I’m going to butter up these VIPs with a very pleasant gathering at a mansion out in Sussex, the whole English Manor Experience, if you like. We’ll have a butler, staff, a gourmet chef cookin’ ’em a proper nosh-up. I’ve done a deal with Madame Felicity to bring in some of her girls—”

  “The supermodel-looking ones?” Benjamin asked, eyes lighting up.

  “If you like, yes,” Roger said. “To entertain the gentlemen I’ll be hosting, to soften ’em up, as it were, for the business pitch I’m going to make.”

  Madame Felicity’s call girls were so expensive that none of us could ever expect to be able to afford them. Working in proximity to them was going to be strictly “look, don’t touch” that weekend. They were reserved for the guests.

  “And what business pitch is that?” Julia asked.

  Roger glanced over at David Okri. David shook his head. Then he saw me see him shake his head and looked away sheepishly. If I was a suspicious man, my Dodgy Business Detector would have been pinging, but I was strictly in neutral no-judgment mode.

  “Let’s just say we’re expanding into something much bigger,” Roger said, smiling that chancer’s smile of his. “Something I’ve spent years puttin’ together. They buy in, partner up with me, we launch the plan, and we could be on top of the world.”

  Cheryl really hated that smile. She had been putting up with it for thirty years. I wondered if at one point she might have been charmed by it.

  “You’re not paying for Madame Felicity’s girls, are you, boss?” Mark asked.

  “Stone me, no!” Roger said. “Never spend your own dosh if you can help it. Didn’t I teach you all that from Day One? No, no, the girls’ fees are paid by my guests. They reserved their services, you might say. This is a rare opportunity for them to spend time with these top girls since Madame Felicity has them otherwise booked up for the rest of the year.”

  “Call girls as the price for admission,” Cheryl said with a hint of disdain.

  “To these rich bastards, those girls are well worth it,” Ken said.

  “This doesn’t sound like an investigations case,” I said. “What do you need us for? Providing security? Surely these guests would have their own people and bodyguards?”

  “Good question, Ravi!” Roger said, warming into Teacher Mode. I recognized that from back when I taught secondary school in North London, that thrill when my students started to give a shit enough to ask questions rather than just heckle. “I want you lot there to provide security for the manor and keep an eye on the guests.”

  “Here we go.” Benjamin Lee grinned. “You mean you want us to bug them.”

  “Right you are!” Roger cried. “Full whack.”

  “Luvly-jubbly!” Benjamin rubbed his hands.

  As the firm’s techie and surveillance expert, he lived for using the latest bugs, drones, and whatever recording devices, some of which he built himself, to gather people’s secrets, the more embarrassing the better, as long as he got to cause mischief.

  Marcie had been curiously silent through all this, listening intently.

  “So we’re not cleaning dirty laundry, then,” Olivia said. “We’re gathering dirty laundry on prospective clients.”

  “Not clients,” Roger said. “Business partners.”

  “They’re investing in Golden Sentinels?” Marcie Holder perked up.

  “Not this firm per se,” Roger said. “It’s a new company that’s going to be like a sister company to this one.”

  “Another private investigation agency?” Mark said. “I thought you said Golden Sentinels was supposed to be your flagship business.”

  “Not a private investigation firm,” Roger said. “Something else altogether that’s going to open a lot of new doors for us.”

  I noticed Cheryl didn’t look particularly pleased about any of this cheery talk, and David was unusually nervous as well. He betrayed his poker face by pursing his lips every few seconds, a sign I’d recognized since uni that he was nervous.

  “You know what the deal is, right?” I said to David.

  “David has been instrumental in helping me write the business plan for this new venture,” Roger said. “We needed to get every term, every clause, every bit of legality right.”

  “Bloody better,” Cheryl said, still glowering.

  “So come that weekend, I want you all to set up shop in Beam Manor and get the place ready. You can coordinate with the staff; they’re already expecting you and they’re fully prepared to help in what you need to do.”

  “And they’re all right with the stuff that’s going to go on there?” Mark asked.

  “They’ve seen all kinds of mad shit when Alfie Beam was alive,” Roger said. “His rock star parties were off the charts. Alfie had orgies, yoga and meditation weekends with his guru, druidic ceremonies to welcome the solstice, you name it. This will be a doddle compared to all that.”

  “I’m not going,” Olivia said.

  “Ah yes,” Roger said. “Your parents flying in from Hong Kong that weekend.”

  “Sorry, Roger,” Olivia said, barely glancing up from her computer. “Confucian rules. I have to go be a good daughter.”

  “Of course,” Roger said, not batting an eyelash. “The Wongs want to spend time with their only darling daughter. Who am I to stand in the way of that? Give your old dad my regards.”

  If any of the rest of us tried to beg off this assignment, that might be a firing offense, but not Olivia. Being his goddaughter had its privileges.

  “I’m sure everyone will be fine without me,” she said. “I’ve set up the listening network like you asked. You should be able to log in and use it to keep tabs on the guests and record them when you need it. I can run interference from London if you need me, otherwise I’m stuck taking Mum to Harrods while Dad visits his mistress in Bayswater. And I’ll be having a serious chin-wag with Dad.”

  “About what?” Benjamin asked.

  “He’s expanding his investment portfolio here in London, and I might point him towards some properties.”

  “I thought he blacklisted you from the banking business,” Mark said. “Do I detect a bit of thawing in his disposition?”

  “He’s been hinting,” Olivia said, “that if I get back in his good books, he might think about lifting the ban on me working in the financial world. I suspect my mother put him up to it.”

  “Are you thinking about leaving this place and finally going into the proper world of banking?” I asked.

  “Let’s see what my dad has to say first,” she said. “Anyway, I’ll have my phone and computer, so I can provide any backup and intel you might need from my end.”

  “And this venture has nothing to do with me,” Cheryl said. “Someone has to keep an eye on Golden Sentinels business while you’re all away. You lot had better watch your Ps and Qs. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Mark said.

  “I want you lot to set up shop in the manor,” Roger said. “Ken and Clive provide the security. Benjamin, you’re on tech and surveillance detail, manning the computers. Ravi, Julia, Mark, Marcie, you all are my team; you show the guests around, play host, keep them out of trouble, or if they get into trouble, keep it from getting out of hand.”

  “Out of hand in what way?” I asked.

  “These are rich and powerful men with particular tastes,” Roger said. “Use your imagination.”

  “I’d rather not,” I said.

  “It’s probably much worse than you imagine anyway,” Mark said.

  “Whatever happens, Benjamin will record everything,”
Roger said.

  “So we’re staying in the manor?” Benjamin asked.

  “You’ll be in the servants’ quarters,” Olivia said. “Not the big guest rooms, and you won’t get a valet to hold your underwear for you in the morning.”

  “Very Upstairs, Downstairs,” Mark said.

  “Only with more call girls and voyeurism,” Benjamin said.

  “I want to re-create Sodom and Gomorrah in an English garden,” Roger said. “And make sure we have video of it!”

  I glanced over at the gods. They were all lounging on Roger’s expensive sofa, watching us intently like the audience at a preview. Kali licked her lips with her long tongue. Ganesha laughed a snorting laugh. Shiva smiled like a Cheshire cat. Lakshmi was helping herself to Roger’s gin. She would be right at home at the manor, the goddess of wealth and abundance in her element. No way were the gods going to sleep in the servants’ quarters. They were going to have the best rooms, and no one was going to notice them, since they were in my head.

  “This is fairly typical of the parties I went to when I was alive,” Louise said. “Piece of piss.”

  “Perhaps we’ll see a reenactment of a section of the Mahabarata,” Lord Shiva mused.

  “In modern dress?” Louise Fowler said. “It could be an allegory for the times.”

  “If you like,” Ganesha said.

  This was getting awfully meta. My gods were now discussing literature with Julia’s goddess. My mind must really be wandering to start seeing fan fiction about gods. Even my insanity was reacting to the boredom of this assignment.