Not soldiers, no. Not exactly.
“I work by absorption,” I finished. “Whatever I come into contact with, I soak up, and I use that to get by.”
Bancroft shifted in his seat. He wasn’t used to being lectured. It was time to start.
“Who found your body?”
“My daughter, Naomi.”
He broke off as someone opened the door in the room below. A moment later, the maid that had attended Miriam Bancroft earlier came up the steps to the balcony bearing a tray with a visibly chilled decanter and tall glasses. Bancroft was wired with internal tannoy, like everyone else at Suntouch House it seemed.
The maid set down her tray, poured in machine-like silence and then withdrew on a short nod from Bancroft. He stared after her blankly for a while.
Back from the dead. It’s no joke.
“Naomi,” I prompted him gently.
He blinked. “Oh. Yes. She barged in here, wanting something. Probably the keys to one of the limos. I’m an indulgent father, I suppose, and Naomi is my youngest.”
“How young?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Do you have many children?”
“Yes, I do. Very many.” Bancroft smiled faintly. “When you have leisure and wealth, bringing children into the world is a pure joy. I have twenty-seven sons and thirty-four daughters.”
“Do they live with you?”
“Naomi does, most of the time. The others come and go. Most have families of their own now.”
“How is Naomi?” I stepped my tone down a little.
Finding your father without his head isn’t the best way to start the day.
“She’s in psychosurgery,” said Bancroft shortly. “But she’ll pull through. Do you need to talk to her?”
“Not at the moment.” I got up from the chair and went to the balcony door. “You say she barged in here. This is where it happened?”
“Yes.” Bancroft joined me at the door. “Someone got in here and took my head off with a particle blaster. You can see the blast mark on the wall down there. Over by the desk.”
I went inside and down the stairs. The desk was a heavy mirrorwood item—they must have freighted the gene code from Harlan’s World and cultured the tree here. That struck me as almost as extravagant as the Songspire in the hall, and in slightly more questionable taste. On the World mirrorwood grows in forests on three continents, and practically every canal dive in Millsport has a bar top carved out of the stuff. I moved past it to inspect the stucco wall. The white surface was furrowed and seared black with the unmistakable signature of a beam weapon. The burn started at head height and followed a short arc downwards.
Bancroft had remained on the balcony. I looked up at his silhouetted face. “This is the only sign of gunfire in the room?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing else was damaged, broken or disturbed in any way?”
“No. Nothing.” It was clear that he wanted to say more, but he was keeping quiet until I’d finished.
“And the police found the weapon beside you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you own a weapon that would do this?”
“Yes. It was mine. I keep it in a safe under the desk. Handprint coded. They found the safe open, nothing else removed. Do you want to see inside it?”
“Not at the moment, thank you.” I knew from experience how difficult mirrorwood furniture is to shift. I turned up one corner of the woven rug under the desk. There was an almost invisible seam in the floor beneath. “Whose prints will open this?”
“Miriam’s and my own.”
There was a significant pause. Bancroft sighed, loud enough to carry across the room. “Go on, Kovacs. Say it. Everyone else has. Either I committed suicide or my wife murdered me. There’s just no other reasonable explanation. I’ve been hearing it since they pulled me out of the tank at Alcatraz.”
I looked elaborately round the room before I met his eyes.
“Well, you’ll admit it makes for easier police work,” I said. “It’s nice and neat.”
He snorted, but there was a laugh in it. I found myself beginning to like this man despite myself. I went back up, stepped out onto the balcony and leaned on the rail. Outside a black-clad figure prowled back and forth across the lawn below, weapon slung at port. In the distance the power fence shimmered. I stared in that direction for a while.
“It’s asking a lot to believe that someone got in here, past all the security, broke into a safe only you and your wife had access to and murdered you, without causing any disturbance. You’re an intelligent man, you must have some reason for believing it.”
“Oh, I do. Several.”