Page 55 of 56 Days
“Not now or you never were?”
“I think I had an account for about five minutes a few years back, but I never posted anything to it. Why? Areyou?”
“Oh, so you’re going with pretending you haven’t already had a look for me on there, are you?” He grins.
“I haven’t! I swear... Honestly, it wouldn’t even have occurred to me.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So you’re not down with all the cool kids, then?”
“I think,” Ciara says, “that using the phrase ‘down with all the cool kids’ might preclude you from being that...?”
“Fair. And I’m not, to answer your question. On the ’Gram.”
“What a shame. You’d besucha hit on there.”
“Would I?”
“Withthatface?” she says. “Of course you would. And you’re an architect, for God’s sake.”
“Not quite.”
“You would be on there. Social media is no place for nuance. You need to milk all that building buildings shit.”
“That’s actually what my degree course was called: Bachelor of Building Buildings Shit.”
She laughs. Then says, “So whyaren’tyou on there?”
“Honestly...?” He exhales, buying time. He needs to do a better job of this than he did with the scar.Keep it simple. “I just don’t, you know,getit. I’m not against it or anything, I just wouldn’t know what to do with it.” He pauses. “Why aren’tyouon there?”
“Because I’ve seen behind the curtain.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I meant for it to.” She leans forward, elbows on the table. “Look, nothing is free, right? We pay for these apps with our data. That’s what all those user agreements that no one ever reads actually say. But the fact that all these tech giants are collecting information about us is not what everyone should be worried about—it’s what they’redoingwith it that’s terrifying. I can make a list of documentaries for you to watch—horror movies, really—but thetoo-long-didn’t-readis that they’re feeding the data to AIs that are working to erode the very idea of free will. I can’t stop it—I don’t think anyone can, it’s too late—but I don’t need to actively help either. So I’m down to just LinkedIn because in our industry if you’re not on there it’s like you don’t exist at all, but that’s it. Our robot overlords are coming regardless, but I’m not going to hold the door open for them.”
He allows himself a moment of believing all this, of contemplating what it would mean for him if this were actually true, if Ciara really didn’t use social media. He tries to imagine it. What if there were no danger that, through her, his name and face would make their way online, sending some vigilante Twitter mob into the street bearing torches and pitchforks, catching the attention of the tabloid media?
He could keep seeing her. For a little while longer, anyway.
So long as she keeps believinghim.
Today
The smell in the lobby is worse than before.
Through the glass doors opposite her, Lee can see that the occupants of the apartments in the corridor between here and the scene have wisely taken to their terraces. For the time being, they can’t leave unless they have what counts as an emergency reason, and a global pandemic has put an end to most of those. Normally they might relocate them to a hotel, but in the current circumstances that’s not the easy option it might have previously been. Once the forensics guys have done their business and the pathologist has been and gone, the body can be removed and the apartment can be cleaned. Until then, she hopes the weather stays fine for them.
Masked up and trying to breathe through her mouth, Lee opens the box assigned to apartment one with a key that one of the uniforms has borrowed from the woman in apartment four. Apparently all the letterbox keys are the same here; she wonders if the residents know and, if so, how they feel about that. She retrieves the contents with a gloved hand. While the uniform hurries off to return the key, Lee takes her bounty back outside—and herself away from the smell.
Karl is waiting by their car, looking inordinately pleased with himself for somehow managing to rustle up two coffees.
They sit in the front seats, leaving the doors open so they can keep one ear on the scene and respond if anyone needs them.
He sets the cups on the dash and pulls a clear evidence bag from the glove compartment, holding it open so Lee can drop the envelope inside.
