When his aged car finally gave up the ghost last year, Councillor Robert Wallis had elected to switch to an electric model. A few of the dealerships in Hereford had electric cars on offer, but Wallis instead sent away for one that promised full self-driving capability within the year. Of course it was only once he’d bought the damn thing that he’d learned self-driving cars weren’t even legal in Britain yet.
But they would be eventually. There was no avoiding the future.
As he finished parking outside the council offices, Wallis fished a packet out of the glove box and popped two tablets into his mouth, chewing rapidly. Those rumours about the fraud squad had set off a particularly vicious round of heartburn.
Wallis’ position as cabinet member for community assets and services afforded him a small reception area outside his office. It contained his assistant’s desk, a few chairs, and — at present — Elizabeth Leonard, deputy leader of the cabinet.
“Bob!” She ambushed him immediately, waving her phone in his face. “Have you seen this?”
Wallis just managed to make out a headline:
Herefordshire Council prepares to implement ‘risky’ social services AI
“Oh god,” he said.
AlgoDV had been his latest manoeuvre to keep Hodgson from poaching all the choice bits of Wallis’ portfolio for herself. Policy-wise, it was a silver bullet: cost-cutting, forward-thinking, and it played beautifully in contrast to the press disaster brought about by Hodgson’s botched handling of children’s services.
Now, though, Wallis had the horrible suspicion it was about to become an anchor round his neck.
“Someone at the paper dug up a report from Spain,” Leonard explained. “Police there have been using AlgoDV for about a year now. There have been incidents.”
“Incidents?” Wallis said faintly.
“Deaths. Women sent home to abusive husbands who promptly killed them.”
“Ah.” Wallis swallowed around the burning sensation at the base of his throat. “I hadn’t heard about that.”
“We’ve already got Ofsted breathing down our necks,” Leonard said. “The last thing we need is a second national embarrassment. So that interview you’ve got today—”
“Interview?” Wallis shot a confused look at his assistant, Heather.
“I don’t remember when it got booked, but it’s in the calendar,” Heather said, sheepish. “It’s over lunch, at the Hereford Arms.”
“—the interview,” Leonard continued, with a firm glare, “will be our best chance to get out ahead of this.”
Her tone made clear she was already sharpening an axe in the event he didn’t.
The Hereford Arms was a venerable pub of whitewashed brick just off High Street. Recent changes in management had resulted in a menu that was a little more adventurous than Wallis preferred, but they still had decent scampi. By the time he arrived, the journalist he was supposed to meet was already sat at a table near the windows.
He was a slight young man, a bit on the short side and wearing an absolutely hideous short-sleeved button down with what appeared to be a dragon printed across the front. A pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses sat atop his head.
“Councillor Wallis?” The journalist gave him an idle wave, not bothering to rise from his seat. “Miles Fowler, TechRat Magazine.”
“Charmed.” Wallis struggled to maintain a pleasantly neutral demeanour as he took a seat across from Fowler. He’d already placed his order at the bar; after briefly contemplating the headlines that might result from drinking Scotch at lunchtime in the presence of a journalist, he’d asked for water instead. Fowler already had a pint on the table in front of him.
Fowler glanced out the bullseye glass of the window. “Nice car,” he said, with what Wallis suspected was sarcasm.
“Er, yes, thank you.” Wallis sipped at his water before adding, more brightly, “It’s electric.”
“Conscientious of you.” Fowler’s phone rested on the table; he unlocked it with a few quick taps and opened up a recording app. “Let’s get started, then,” he said, and swiped over to his notes. “Councillor Wallis, you were the mastermind behind the trial programme for AlgoDV, a tool meant to ‘more efficiently allocate resources for victims of domestic violence.’ How did that get started?”
Wallis wet his throat with more water. “Well, with recent shortfalls in council funding, we’ve been looking for ways to reduce inefficiencies.” He’d spent the morning practising his talking points with Heather. “When it came to social services, AI offered a unique solution to staffing and caseload issues.”
Fowler had a keen look. “So Herefordshire plans to replace all its social workers with an algorithm?”
“Of course not,” Wallis said quickly, and pivoted to the established talking point: “AlgoDV only makes recommendations. It’s always a human being who makes the final decision.”
“There was a local story this morning—”
“I saw.”
“So you’re aware that AlgoDV doesn’t have a sterling track record,” Fowler said, with a smug air. “Clearly, your ‘unique solution’ carries certain risks.”
“And we are moving forward in mind of those risks,” Wallis replied, relieved that he had something ready for this. “I even attended last year’s AI Safety Symposium in Barcelona, to better understand the potential dangers of these new technologies.”
Whatever Fowler had to say to that, it was interrupted by the arrival of a waitress. She placed their respective meals on the varnished wooden table; Fowler had ordered some kind of rice bowl, and Wallis was granted a few minutes of peace as he tucked into his scampi.
“So,” Fowler said, picking at his food, “what made you pick AlgoDV? You bypassed the usual tender process, so it must have been something special.”
Of course he’d asked that while Wallis had a mouthful of shrimp. “Well,” he said behind his hand, chewing and swallowing in a rush, “in some cases, the council’s needs are so exacting that there isn’t really an open market for them. In the end, we only found one company making the kind of software we were looking for.”
“So Thinkt didn’t approach you, first?”
It was a casual question, but Fowler’s eyes drilled right through Wallis and out the other side.
A searing ache flared in Wallis’ chest. “Well, we were of course, er, made aware of our options by … various members of the industry.”
“But you said there weren’t any other options. Just AlgoDV.”
“Er … yes. That’s correct.”
Fowler made a thoughtful noise, fingers tapping away at his phone as he noted something down. It was a disconcertingly lengthy note. “So,” he said once he was done, “how does AlgoDV work?”
At last, Wallis was back on familiar footing. “Well, using existing case data, Thinkt has built a proprietary algorithm that objectively assesses each subject.” He knew this line well; it was what had sold him on AlgoDV in the first place. “Using the answers to a series of simple questions, AlgoDV evaluates each case based on thirty-six key metrics—”
“But how does it work?” Fowler interrupted, insistent. “Nuts and bolts, like.”
Wallis had no idea. “Erm …”
His phone rang. He gratefully fumbled it from his pocket; the call was coming in from his own office.
“Sorry, I need to—” Wallis hurried away from the table and answered the call. “What?”
“Councillor?” Heather said in a hushed voice. “You might want to get back here.”
“I’m in the middle of that bloody interview,” Wallis shot back. “Which is going terribly, by the way, so I need to get back to it before Liz has me publicly executed.”
“It’s just — that man from the Serious Fraud Office is here. He wants to see you. Specifically.”
“Oh, god.”
The reception area of Wallis’ office was blessedly empty by the time he arrived.
“Good, he’s not here,” Wallis said breathlessly, breezing past Heather’s desk on his way in.
Heather shot to her feet. “Well, he’s—”
“We need to prepare. I’ve already embarrassed myself with the fucking press, the last thing I need is to fumble in front of—”
Wallis opened the door to find a tall, athletic man in a dark suit leaning against his desk.
“He said he’d wait for you in your office,” Heather reported, belatedly.
“Yes, thank you, Heather.”
“Councillor Wallis.” The man stepped forward, hand out; his expression was utterly blank, his eyes icy and intent. Three long scars slashed across one side of his face. “Eric Hayes, Serious Fraud Office.”
Wallis fumbled his way through the handshake. “Mr. Hayes, hello. I’m — you know who I am already.” He cleared his throat. “What brings you to my office?”
“Well, I recently had a look at Herefordshire Council’s contract with Thinkt — the AlgoDV contract,” Hayes said. “It raised a few questions I was hoping you could answer.”
“Of course.” Wallis retreated behind his desk and struggled to project an air of helpful affability, even as he dug the box of heartburn tablets from his pocket and crunched two of them between his back teeth. “Please, sit down.”
There was a guest chair in front of the desk; Wallis had specifically requested the least comfortable thing Heather could find, hoping to deter anyone from bothering him for more than a few minutes at a time. Hayes’ cool demeanour didn’t change as he seated himself on hard plastic and retrieved a small notebook from his jacket.
Flipping through the pages, he said, “You met with representatives from Thinkt quite a few times in the lead-up to the awarding of their contract.”
“That’s normal,” Wallis said quickly. “We had to make sure it was a good fit for the council’s needs. Standard procedure.”
“I’m sure.” Hayes skimmed a page of the notebook. “Some of those meetings were here in Hereford, but others were in London. Yet your finance division couldn’t seem to find any expenses filed for those trips.”
“The hotel was paid for ahead of time.”
“But surely you had to eat.”
“Yes, well.” Wallis cleared his throat. “I went out to dinner with Dan and his colleagues most nights.”
“‘Dan’?”
“Dan Makris,” Wallis clarified. “He works in sales at Thinkt.”
There was a lot to like about Dan. He was young and charming, cheerfully coarse in that way Americans so often were, always eager to share stories of adventurous nights out or youthful indiscretions. Those dinners, held at restaurants Wallis never could’ve afforded on a council stipend, had been suffused with a feeling of rare camaraderie he couldn’t quite describe in words.
Hayes scribbled something down. “And he paid for those meals?”
“He used the company card,” Wallis said, feeling as if this were somehow both the right and wrong answer.
Hayes made a noise of interest low in his throat and kept scribbling.
Wallis shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Was there anything else?”
“Yes.” Hayes looked up at him; Wallis couldn’t decide whether his direct, passionless stare was worse than the note-taking. “There was also a trip to Barcelona. You were gone for a week?”
“That was the, er, AI Safety Symposium.”
“Which was only three days long,” Hayes said. “You were invited directly by the organisers. They brought you in on a chartered flight and put you up at the Villa Teodora — that’s a five-star hotel.”
“Is it?” Wallis said faintly.
“You are, of course, aware that one of the conference’s primary sponsors was Thinkt LLC?”
“Were they?”
Hayes was writing in the notebook again.
“Look,” Wallis said, fighting off the feeling that something was closing in around him, “I can assure you, no money ever changed hands between anyone at Thinkt and myself.”
“Of course not.” Hayes’ expression didn’t change. “You’re very careful, after all. But one might worry that Thinkt has received … undue consideration from this council.” He blinked. “From you.”
Wallis’ stomach acid gnawed at the base of his throat. “I’m sorry, was there a question?”
Hayes bared his teeth in what had to be a smile, although his eyes remained cold and indifferent. “No,” he said. “You’ve answered all the questions I had. For now, anyway.”
With that, he stood and strode from the office.
Wallis slumped against his desk with a low groan.
Jay had parked the car around a corner from the council offices, well out of sight of anyone watching from the building’s windows. Sebastian pulled the passenger-side door open and settled into the seat with a soft sigh.
“How’d it go?” Jay asked from the driver’s seat.
“He’s definitely anxious. Looked about ready to pass out by the time I was done.” Sebastian glanced to the side; Jay hadn’t changed clothes since he met with Wallis at the pub. “I have concerns about that shirt.”
“It’s for the cover,” Jay replied dismissively. “Now we’ve put the fear of god into him, Wallis will want to shift blame from himself onto Thinkt. Quickest way to do that is to change his recommendation for the AlgoDV contract.”
Sebastian’s phone rang. He twisted awkwardly in his seat to extract it from his trouser pocket. “What if he doesn’t?”
“Then we apply more pressure until he does.”
The call was from a number Sebastian didn’t recognise; he answered with a wary, “Hello?”
An unfamiliar voice said, “Is this Sebastian?”
“Depends. Who’s this?”
“My name’s Will. I work with Julia at the hotel.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Sorry, but — how soon can you get here?”
The Boscombe Hotel sat atop a hill overlooking the rolling green fields around Ross. Sebastian was restless in the passenger seat as Jay turned off the motorway onto a narrow road up the hill, pulling up in front of the hotel’s main entrance. It was a sprawling Georgian establishment of white plaster walls and gingerbread trim, and the car had barely come to a stop before Sebastian was out and moving, pushing through the hotel’s front door into the lobby.
Behind the old oak reception desk sat a young woman, immediately thrown off her usual script by Sebastian’s abrupt appearance. “Erm,” she said, “are you here for—?”
Sebastian nodded. “Where is she?”
“In her office.” The girl pointed Sebastian to a door behind the stairs.
The door opened into a narrow hall, at the end of which was the manager’s office. It was a sunny, cosy room with a view out onto the hotel terrace; Julia wasn’t behind her desk, but instead sat on the old chesterfield sofa in the corner, hunched over with her face in her hands. A man about Sebastian’s age sat next to her, rubbing a hand between her shoulders.
“Sebastian?” he asked, and Sebastian recognised the voice as Will’s.
Julia lifted her face from her hands. Her face was bloodless, her eyes a little red around the edges — although she didn’t look like she’d been crying.
“Jules?” Sebastian approached the sofa and crouched until they were more or less face-to-face. “All right?”
“I’m fine.” Julia sniffed and rubbed lightly at the corners of her eyes with her fingertips, careful not to smear her makeup. “It was — a truck backfired in the car park. I got a bit rattled. That’s all.”
The look on Will’s face suggested “a bit rattled” was a massive understatement.
Behind Sebastian, the door opened; Jay hovered uncertainly in the doorway.
To Julia, Sebastian said, “What do you want to do?”
“I want to go home,” she blurted out, then gathered herself. “I can’t, though. It’s only two o’ clock—”
“Almost three,” Will corrected, “and it’s a slow day. We’ll manage.”
Julia sniffed again and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m not sure I can drive.”
“I’ll take you home,” Sebastian replied immediately.
Julia gave him a grateful look, but wavered. “I’d have to leave my car—”
From the doorway, Jay said, “I can drive it back.”
“Okay.” Julia sat up with a decisive nod. “Okay.”
The drive from the hotel back to Julia’s house was less than five minutes, but something told Jay it’d be best if he didn’t arrive right on Moran’s heels. He took a detour through town, killing about ten minutes as he circled round to approach the house from the opposite direction.
By the time he pulled in, the rental car was already parked in the drive. The door to Julia’s bedroom was closed. Moran wasn’t in the guest room; he wasn’t in the sitting room, either. Instead Patience lay on the sofa, headphones on as she scrolled through something on her phone.
She spotted Jay over the edge of her screen and shifted one speaker off her ear. “Mum’s lying down. Seb went out for a smoke.”
“Thanks,” Jay replied, and headed back outside.
From the pavement, Moran was just visible on the far side of the field. Jay grumbled a bit as he crossed the uneven, overgrown stretch and climbed up to sit atop the fence. Moran acknowledged Jay with a slight turn of his head; his eyes had an unfocused look as he brought a cigarette to his lips for a long, slow drag.
Silence settled in around them, interrupted only occasionally by the whoosh of a passing car. Quiet like this was rare in London; it was something Jay couldn’t help but miss.
“I keep thinking there’s some way I can fix it,” Moran said, low and hushed. “Something I can do or say, and then she’ll be all right.” There was a helpless note in his voice — the knowledge that he was fighting a battle not just lost, but one that never could’ve been won in the first place.
“She feels safer with you here.” It was the only reassurance Jay could offer.
Moran flicked ash dismissively off the end of the cigarette. “Yes, it must be so nice to have another violent man—”
“That’s not how she sees you.” The words came out more annoyed than Jay intended. “You think she’d let her daughter climb all over you if it were?”
Moran stubbed the cigarette out on the fencepost, grinding it into the old, worn wood a little harder than necessary. “You don’t have to be here, Jay.”
“You didn’t have to help me with Anya Clay,” Jay reminded him. “Or the Konovalovs.”
A frustrated noise rumbled low in Moran’s throat. “You don’t owe me—”
“No.” Jay grabbed the front of Sebastian’s shirt, hauling him in close. Sebastian didn’t resist, stumbling a little as Jay dragged him around until they were face-to-face. Jay’s perch on the fence rail put them both at the same height, for once. “I want to be here. I want to help.”
Sebastian’s lips parted just a little, the look in his eyes open and raw and shattered. Jay had barely a moment to wonder what he’d said to break him into pieces like that before Sebastian took Jay’s face in both hands and, with a shivery exhale, crashed their lips together.
The force of it nearly knocked Jay off the fence, and he wrapped his legs around Sebastian’s waist to stay in place, fingers still tangled in his shirt. Sebastian’s lips and tongue tasted of smoke. One of his arms moved around Jay’s back, hauling him in close; his other hand was warm and heavy against the side of Jay’s neck. He was breathing soft, desperate sounds into Jay’s mouth, drinking in the feel of him like he needed it to live.
There was a brief, sharp honk from the road as a car passed by. Jay’s heart nearly stopped, his whole body twitching; he tipped backward off the fence, and Sebastian had to scramble to catch him.
“Fucking arsehole,” Jay snarled.
Sebastian muffled a laugh in his shoulder.
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