84K

by Claire North

Genres: Literary Fiction; General Fiction; Dystopian

Synopsis

From one of the most powerful writers in modern fiction and World Fantasy Award winner comes a dystopian vision of a world where money reigns supreme, and nothing is so precious that it can’t be bought…

The penalty for Dani Cumali's murder: £84,000.

Theo works in the Criminal Audit Office. He assesses each crime that crosses his desk and makes sure the correct debt to society is paid in full.

These days, there's no need to go to prison—provided that you can afford to pay the penalty for the crime you've committed. If you're rich enough, you can get away with murder.

But Dani's murder is different. When Theo finds her lifeless body, and a hired killer standing over her and calmly calling the police to confess, he can't let her death become just an entry on a balance sheet.

Someone is responsible. And Theo is going to find them and make them pay.

Release date: May 22, 2018

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 496

Sample

Praise for THE NOVELS OF CLAIRE NORTH

The End of the Day

“A beautiful, if occasionally uncomfortable, read that resists being labeled with any particular genre.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“Wholly original and hauntingly beautiful. North is a writer to watch.”

—Kirkus

“North is an exciting voice in contemporary fantasy, and The End of the Day should be a welcome calling card from her to many new readers.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“North’s writing is poetic and accessible, imaginative and jam-packed full of knowledge … making The End of the Day a thoroughly engaging and astute read from start to finish.”

—SciFiNow

“North is a consistently intriguing writer.”

—Locus

“Just like Death itself, the story is unpredictable … But it’s moving, a novel you’ll sob to while reading.”

—SFX

The Sudden Appearance of Hope

“North … has established a reputation for tense, dense, science fiction/fantasy-inflected thrillers that defy facile expectations …. Simultaneously a tense conspiracy caper, a haunting meditation on loneliness and a brutally cynical examination of modern media …. Well-paced, brilliant and balanced.”

—New York Times

“Beautifully written, with a protagonist who is both tragic and heroic, the novel is remarkably powerful and deeply memorable, the latest in a string of terrific books from this newly emerged star in the genre-blending universe.”

—Booklist (Starred Review)

“This is an inquiry into modern human existence. Philosophical questions are threaded through the electrifying plot. Even the protagonist’s darkness alias is ‘why.’ Reminiscent of William Gibson’s best work, North leads us into a brilliant world of elite but mindless humans, and shines a sharp light on what a rare gift it is to be able to think for oneself and what the consequences of it are.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Claire North’s The Sudden Appearance of Hope is a novel with an argument to make about smartphone apps and online identity …. North isn’t here to lecture you or rehash tired debates. Instead, she’s produced something that feels at the same time absent and necessary: Smart, compelling fiction about this future that asks us to outsource ever-larger chunks of our selves to the cloud.”

—Tech Insider

“Claire North novels are … progressive and introspective—as chilling, invariably, as they are thrilling—and The Sudden Appearance of Hope is no exception.”

—Tor.com

“To me, the thing that’s perhaps the most sinister about Perfection isn’t that it offers you plastic surgery. But rather the way that the app decides what Perfection actually is. Instead of finding out what you want, and helping you achieve it, Perfection decides what you should want.”

—Flash Forward

“It’s intricate, but somehow, once again Claire North makes it all work …. A fantastic read featuring a unique protagonist with a unique problem … definitely worth remembering.”

—Kirkus

Touch

“Touch is a brilliantly balanced knife’s edge of a book—fast-paced and thrilling, it’s somehow also languorous, thoughtful, intelligently intimate. Kepler is a thoroughly absorbing and sympathetic anti-hero, trying to minimize harm while striving for survival …. I am left staggered into an awed slow-clap at everything North has accomplished here. Touch is touching, horrifying, magnificent; step into it, and it will step into you.”

—NPR Books

“The high stakes and breakneck pace of the plot will draw readers in, and the meditations on what it means to be human and to be loved will linger long after the last shot is fired.”

—Kirkus

“As masterful as her debut …. [A] fast-paced, imaginative novel …. There is plenty of conspiracy and intrigue in this deftly paced novel, but North also poses subtle questions about identity and love.”

—Washington Post

“This novel is utterly engaging, addictive, and thought-provoking. The characters are superbly drawn, their interactions realistic and engaging.”

—Civilian Reader

“Another thrilling leap into the unknown.”

—Toronto Sunday Star

“Little short of a masterpiece.”

—Independent (UK)

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“I don’t say this lightly but The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is one of the top ten books I’ve ever read.”

—James Dashner, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Maze Runner

“An astonishing re-invention of the time travel narrative. Bold, magical and masterful.”

—M. R. Carey

“A thoughtful and considered time-travel novel, shocking twists and, most important of all, a beautiful character. Harry August will break your heart fifteen times.”

—Jared Shurin

“A subtle study of friendship, love and the complexity of existence.”

—Eric Brown, Guardian

“Fantastic.”

—io9

“Wonderful novel … held together by a compelling mystery involving nothing less than the end of the world itself. Beautifully written and structured … a remarkable book.”

—Booklist (Starred Review)

“A tremendously entertaining ride … You’re sure to enjoy the trip.”

—Toronto Sunday Star

At the beginning and ending of all things …

She had not seen the man called Theo in the cards, nor did they prophesy the meaning of her actions. When she called the ambulance they said they would come soon, and half an hour later she was still waiting by the water.

And when she called again they had no record of her call, and gave her the number of the complaints department.

The sun was down and the street lights distant, their backs turned to the towpath. On the other side of the water: an industrial estate where once patty-line men had loaded lorries with bikinis and bras, pillows and sofa throws, percale fitted sheets, gold-plated anklets and next season’s striped trend-setting onesies for the discerning customer. Once, the men who laboured there had worn tags around their ankles to ensure that they didn’t walk too slow, or spend too much time taking a piss. If they did, there were worse places they could be sent. There was always somewhere worse.

Now there was black spew up the walls, and the smell of melted plastic lingering on the winter air.

A few white lamps on the loading concourse still shone, their glow slithering across the high barbed-wire fences down to the canal. The light made the frost on the bank sparkle like witches’ eyes, before being swallowed whole by the blackness of the water.

Neila thought of calling out for help, to anyone in the night, but didn’t have the courage and didn’t think anyone would answer. People had their own problems to deal with, things being as they were. Instead she wrapped the man up as best she could in old towels she wouldn’t miss, hiding her nice, fluffy towels under the bed. She felt a bit guilty about that, and alleviated her doubts by making him hot tea, which he could barely sip. Not knowing what else to do, she sat beside the man on the thin, mud-sunk grass by the gate of the lock and dialled 999 again, and got someone new who said:

“Oh my oh yes now of course yes bleeding by the canal do you have an address for that—no an address—how about a postcode, no I’m not seeing you on my map do you have premium or standard service support for an extra £4.99 a month you can upgrade to instant recovery and full rehabilitative therapies for the—oh you’re not insured …”

The call ended there. Maybe a timer cut them off. Maybe there wasn’t much signal at the moment. A pair of ducks waddled uneasily over crêpe-thin ice, now slipping into the water below, now lurching back up onto the transparent surface above, now flapping at the sound of an eager seagull looking for a snack, now quiet again beneath the thickening blue-brown sky, paddling in listless circles.

at the end and the beginning Neila spins in circles too

The man mumbled, through lips turned blue, “You’ve been very kind very kind I’m fine I’m sure I’ll be fine it’s just I’m fine …”

He’d tried saying this before, and fainted, only for a few seconds, then woke and picked up where he’d left off, and she hadn’t had the heart to tell him that he’d passed out while trying to be so stoical, so she let him talk until he stopped, and they stayed there, waiting, and no one came.

She decided to leave him.

At the precise moment she reached that decision, like a truck driving into a concrete wall she knew that she wouldn’t. The universe crumpled and blew apart, and at the centre of it she exclaimed, “This is fucking ridiculous.” She creaked to her feet, pulling him by a limp limb. “Get your backside inside the fucking boat.”

She had to help him walk, and he nearly hit his head on the low door at the stern of the narrowboat as she guided him in, and was unconscious, bleeding out on her white faux-leather couch, before she had got her boots off.

At the beginning of all things …

The man lies on the couch, and dreams and memories blur in a fitful crimson smear of paint.

Maybe it hadn’t been the beginning, but in his dreams it seems that there must have been a point where it all started, where everything changed. Back when he had a job, back when “job” seemed like the most important thing ever, back in the Criminal Audit Office, before the winter and the snow and the blood, at the beginning there had been …

—it seemed ludicrously banal now, but it was perhaps the place where it all went to piss—

… a training weekend.

The weekend was voluntary.

If you did not attend you would be docked one week’s pay and a note put on your file—“BBA.” No one knew what BBA stood for, but the last woman to have these fated letters added had been given a job at a morgue, showing family members the corpses of their loved ones.

Besides, everyone knew that team players were happy volunteers.

The Teamwork Bonding Experience cost £172, payable at sign-up. On the first day he was told to put a cork in his mouth, stand in front of his colleagues and explain his Beliefs and Values.

“Come on, Mr. Miller!” exclaimed the Management Strength Inspiration Course Leader. “Enunciate!”

The man called Theo Miller hesitated, hoping the burning in his face could be mistaken for the effort of not spitting out the dry brown bung, bit a little deeper into the cork, then mumbled: “I belef fat ul pepl arg detherfin of jusfic an …”

“Project! Pro-ject. Use your whole mouth, use your breath to lift you!”

At night they slept in dormitories on creaking metal beds, and were woken at 5 a.m. for a group run. He enjoyed that part. He stood on top of a hill and watched an eyelash of light peek above the horizon, growing hotter, bending the sky, liked the way the shadows of the trees broke out long and thin across the land, the visible light and visible darkness in the air as fog burned away. The walls of London were too high for him to see this sight, and the places in the country where sometimes he’d gone as a child had fallen to scroungers, and the trains didn’t go there any more. For a moment he thought of the sea below the cliffs, and the memory filled his lungs with salty air—then someone told him to stop dawdling, Mr. Miller!

So he ran on, and pretended to be out of breath and struggling at the back, where most of the senior staff were, even though he felt like he could have run for ever. It didn’t do to stand out.

Management joined them at 10 a.m. Management were staying up the road at a golfing resort, but wanted to demonstrate leadership and muck in with the troops. Edward Witt, 37, fresh from Company central office—personal motto “I achieve for me”—roared across the waving long grass, “Come on! Put some welly into it!”

Theo Miller did not smile, did not blink, but concentrated harder on the painted picture of the wooden man before him, drew the axe back over his shoulder and threw it with all his might. He was aiming for the head, but by chance managed to hit it in the nuts.

“Keep going, guys!” barked Edward, bouncing impatiently on the edge of the field as the Fiscal Efficiency Team ran up and down, one statistician suspended by ankles and armpits between two others. “Don’t let each other down!”

Theo wasn’t sure what all of this had to do with his job. He didn’t learn anything about the law, or finance, or governmental good practice. The only colleagues he felt any closer to were the ones he usually hung out with anyway, the hangdog dredges of the Criminal Audit Office who sometimes drank cheap wine on the seventh floor when the lights were out, and didn’t go to the pub because they couldn’t stand the noise.

If anything, the weekend only served to make office cliques tighter, as friends curled in for mutual support against the horror of the experience, shooting suspicious glances across the muddy field to ensure that everyone was suffering equally, losing all together. Edward Witt prowled up and down, encouraging competition, competition, get ahead, and one or two tried gamely, and Theo was always the third man eliminated in a contest, and penultimate man picked for a side.

It wasn’t that he was inept, or even disliked. There wasn’t enough personality in Theo Miller for people to love or hate. A psychic had once attempted to read his aura, and after a period of frowning so intense she started groaning with the effort of her grimace, announced that it was puce. Like everyone else from the mystic to the mundane, she too had failed to spot that his life was a lie, or that the real Theo Miller was fifteen years dead, buried in an unmarked grave. So much for the interconnected mysteries of the universe, Theo thought.

So much for all that.

At the end of the weekend they got into a coach.

The coach sat in traffic, covering twelve miles in an hour and twenty minutes, and Theo dozed. One time he saw a woman standing on the hard shoulder, waving frantically at the passing cars for help, but no one stopped, and tears rolled down her face. People didn’t like to stop on this stretch of the M3. The security fence kept out most of the screamers, the scroungers and the children from the surrounding enclaves, but Company Police signs reminded all that YOUR SAFETY IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, and no one doubted it for a moment. You heard rumours of tax dodgers breaking in through the fence and rushing down into the lanes when the traffic got too slow, to crack open boots and steal anything they could, until speed picked up again and they scuttled to safety or were mown down where they stood.

After four hours of snoozing to a soundtrack of inspirational speeches by Simon Fardell, Company ExO, the coach dropped them off at the office in Victoria. The pavements were too narrow for the tired, baggage-slung commuters waiting for their buses, leaves tumbling from the last of the shedding plane trees.

Though it was late, and they were tired and muddy and sore, Edward treated them to a sandwich dinner, held in the semi-sacred and barely used Large Media Suite, access usually limited to executive grade 2A and above. As they ate thin slices of cucumber between wet pieces of white bread, lights were dimmed, and Edward presented his PowerPoint of Vital Lessons Learned and Where We Go From Here, including a comic montage from the weekend of people falling into mud, dropping their axes and spraining their ankles to lighten the moment and boost team morale.

And when he was done the lights came up

and there were little pink pots of Angel Delight with a single half-strawberry on top and there

was Dani Cumali.

On the canal the man called Theo groans in his sleep and holds the blanket tight, and Neila sits with her head in her hands and wonders what the fuck she’s even done

And in his dreams

and in his memories

Dani is watching him, and that’s where it all went wrong.

In the past

These things are a little blurry but he thinks, yes, in the past, but not that past, the more recent past, the past had already happened, the less important yet more urgent bit of the past that is

(Neila wonders if she should try and give him a blood transfusion, but where the fuck do you even start, times being what they are?)

Dani Cumali stood at the edge of the Large Media Suite in the Criminal Audit Office, and stared at Theo Miller, and that was where the world changed.

Her black hair was cut to a pudding bowl around her ears, her skin devoid of make-up, lines around her mouth, grey and thin, lines between her eyebrows, a cobweb face. Her nails were scrubbed down to thin ridges, she wore the navy blue one-piece of the catering company

and she looked at him

and he looked at her

and they knew each other immediately and without a word.

On the screen was a picture of that time during the weekend when he’d been punched in the face during the self-defence training session and his nose had bled everywhere and wasn’t that hilarious our Theo Miller give him a hand

everyone clapped

and Dani saw and knew the truth.

And she knew that she could destroy him, bring down the house of lies, fraud and deceit that he had built around himself, around his name that was a lie, around teamwork bonding experiences and work reports and progress assessments and pension plans and rental deposits and

and the whole lie of his whole fucking life.

She could tear it down with a single word.

And in her eyes was the fire of the righteous and the sword.

In the beginning.

The man whose name was sometimes Theo Miller had been twenty-two years old when they abolished human rights. The government insisted it was necessary to counter terrorism and bring stable leadership to the country. He’d voted for the opposition and felt very proud of himself, partially because he had a sense that this was the intangible right way of things, but mostly because it was the first time his new name had been tested at the polling station, and held up to scrutiny.

The opposition didn’t have any funding, of course, and everyone knew that the Company was backing the winning team. But any fleeting disappointment he may have felt when they crumbled to a crushing defeat and the prime minister declared, “Too long our enemies have hidden behind human rights as if they were extended to all!” was lightened by the fact that his identity had held. He had voted as Theo Miller, and it hadn’t made a difference, and no one had called his bluff.

He’d still somehow felt it would work out all right in the end.

When they shut down the newspapers for printing stories of corruption and dirty deals, he’d signed the petitions.

When they’d closed the universities for spreading warnings of impending social and economic calamity, he’d thought about attending the rallies, but then decided against it because work would probably frown on these things, and there were people there who took your photo and posted your face online—saboteurs and enemies of the people—and besides, it rained a lot that month and he just needed a morning off.

By then, of course, it was a little too late for petitions. Company men would run for parliament, Company newspapers would trumpet their excellence to the sky, Company TV stations would broadcast their election promises and say how wonderful they were. They would inevitably win, serve their seven years in office and then return to the banking or insurance branches happy to have completed their civic duty, and that was that. It was for the best, the adverts said. This was how democracy worked: corporate and public interests working together at last, for the greater good.

When it became legally compulsory to carry ID, £300 for the certified ID card, £500 fine if caught without it, he knew he was observing an injustice that sent thousands of innocent people to the patty line, too skint to buy, too skint to pay for being too skint to buy. When it became impossible to vote without the ID, he knew he lived in a tyranny, but by then he wasn’t sure what there was left to do in protest. He’d be okay. If he kept his head down. He’d be fine.

He couldn’t put his finger precisely on when parliament rebranded itself “The People’s Engagement Forum,” but he remembered thinking the logo was very well done.

In the Criminal Audit Office, Dani Cumali clears away the remnants of a cucumber sandwich.

In the ancestral home of his family, Philip Arnslade stares at his mother’s dribbling form and blurts, “Well so long as she’s happy!”

On the canal, Neila is pleased to discover that she’s not actually squeamish about head wounds at all.

By the sea, a man who may or may not be a father rages at the ocean.

In the past the man called Theo cycles home from a team bonding experience, and is terrified of the face he has just seen. He didn’t try to talk to Dani. Didn’t meet her eye again after that initial moment of shock. Fled without a word, chin down, expression fixed in stone. Half ran to his bicycle and pedalled away without bothering to tuck his trousers into his socks.

The queues at the Vauxhall Bridge toll weren’t as bad as he’d feared, and the walls of Battersea Power Station were a brilliant cascade of colour bouncing back off the clouds promoting the latest reality TV escapade, huge painted faces pouting brilliant crimson lips into the dark.

He went the long way round, past the giant glass towers of the river, then south, towards houses growing lower and cracked, overgrown front gardens, laundrettes with beige linoleum floors, churches in sloped-roof sheds proclaiming a new Jesus of fire and redemption, a criss-cross of silent railway lines and budget gyms above kebab shops for the men with vast shoulders encasing tiny pop-up heads.

He circled several times before pulling up at the stiff black gate in the crumbling red-brick wall. He couldn’t remember what Mrs. Italiaander, landlady folded in fuchsia, had said to him when he came through the door—she’d said something and he’d even replied, they’d maybe even had a whole conversation—but the memory of it slipped away in a moment.

He sat on the end of his bed and looked around the room, and saw as if for the first time the paucity of character it contained.

A wooden figurine of a woman dancing.

A painting of light across a misty sea.

A couple of 1950s films where everyone knew what to say and exactly how to say it.

A fern that refused to die.

With Dani Cumali’s face overlaying his vision, these things suddenly seemed trivial, pathetic. The revelation jerked him almost to laughter, as the man somewhere beneath Theo Miller, who still faintly remembered the real name he’d been born with, and the hopes he’d had as a child, stared at the farcical illusion of Theo Miller he’d created and realised that in all his efforts to be anonymous he had in fact ceased to be a person whatsoever. The laughter rolled through him for half a minute, then stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and he stared again at nothing.

He sat in muddy clothes on the end of his bed, hands in his lap, and waited to be arrested. In the room next door, Marvin, Mrs. Italiaander’s teenage son, wannabe rock star, wannabe movie star, wannabe private detective wannabe martial artist wannabe somebody in a nobody world, played drum and bass far too loud and wondered if his mum had known all along that he’d stolen that fifty from her purse.

Downstairs, Nikesh, the other flatmate, who did something for the Company, something in insurance or actuarial or—he was never very good at explaining—cooked chicken so spicy it could burn the top off your mouth and listened to radio with the volume turned right down, too low to really hear, but it was the sound of the voices that Nikesh enjoyed, more than the words they spoke.

After a while—after the first twenty minutes of not being arrested—Theo lay back on his double bed, nearly always slept in by one, and stared at the ceiling. His room was five metres by six metres, luxurious by lodging standards. Theo had lived in it for nearly three years. He’d been renting in Streatham before, but his flatmate had got a job in something that paid more, been given a resident’s permit to Zone 1 and moved in with his girlfriend. Theo’s civil service salary didn’t stretch to a mortgage, not with prices being what they were. Not with times being so …

… besides, he didn’t have the papers to live in Kensington or Chiswick or anywhere like that, let alone the cash, so Tulse Hill it had been, two lodgers, a mother and a child pushed into a house built for three. Mrs. Italiaander had never raised Theo’s rent. She liked the way he cleaned the oven once a month and the new shower rail he’d installed. He was a nice, quiet tenant, and that was a rare thing indeed.

It struck Theo as likely that in three years’ time he would probably be in this same bed, on these same sheets, staring at the same crack running to the ceiling rose. This made him feel

… nothing.

He was masterful in feeling nothing. It was what he did best. He had cultivated the art over nearly fifteen years.

He checked his bank balance for the fifth time in the hope it was something better.

Wondered why the cops hadn’t come for him yet.

Realised he had no idea what on earth he was doing with his life, or what the hell he was meant to do now.

Having no idea what to do with himself, he did as he always did and on Monday morning went to work.

The fact they let him through security was strange. He sat at his desk in the Criminal Audit Office, patiently expecting handcuffs. For nearly twenty minutes he slouched there, fingers hooked on the edge of the desk, staring straight ahead without seeing, and waited.

No one came.

After twenty-five minutes an automatic alert appeared warning him that his productivity levels appeared to be slipping and that he was ten minutes away from being put on notice.

He stared at the pop-up message in amazement. In nearly nine years of working at the Criminal Audit Office, he’d never seen such a thing. He took a paracetamol, obvious and slow for the benefit of the camera on top of his screen, and set to work.

The cops didn’t come.

Men in black didn’t burst through his window.

Dani Cumali didn’t laugh like a banshee as they dragged him down, pointing and howling with mirth at the lie that only she could have broken.

Nothing changed, so Theo did his job.

This is the daily diet on which Theo Miller is fed:

murder

theft

fraud

burglary

rape

Guidelines on rape vary depending on whether it is felt that the woman may have dressed in a provocative manner or appeared to be sexually enthusiastic prior to the act of penetration. A woman who does not dress modestly is more likely to be a victim of crime and as a consequence we recommend indemnity in the low-to-mid £30,000 as a starting point for assessing the …

corporate espionage

libel

slander

assault on a corporation

anti-corporate profit activity

By acting against corporate interests, individuals show a complete disregard for society and are harming all, not merely a few. Starting indemnities of £400,000 are a viable place to commence negotiation …

riot

trespass

protest

Once he heard the minister for social responsibility explain: “Crime has huge financial cost on our communities. It is only right that we acknowledge its economic impact in a blue-skies thought-dynamic way that puts society back in the driving seat.”

Theo remembered that phrase clearly—“put society back in the driving seat”—because he found it inherently confusing.

“It is time to hero the narrative of personal responsibility!”

The Criminal Audit Office had emerged some seven or so years before human rights were judged passé, from the outdated monolith of the Crown Prosecution Service. This was when the Company was still trading under many different names, a mess of loans and investments, debts and boards, but after they’d started investing in security. Prison was a deeply inefficient way of rehabilitating criminals, especially given how many were clearly irredeemable, and despite privatisation efficiencies overcrowding and reoffending were a perennial problem. Rehabilitation through work was an excellent and scientifically provable way of instilling good societal values. The first Commercial Reform Institute was opened when Theo was seven years old, and made meat patties for hamburgers.

Shall we go, shall we go to the patty line?

I kissed my love, she swore she was mine,

But they took me to the patty line.

Theo hums a half-remembered tune from his childhood under his breath, doesn’t notice, reads a report.

Semen was discovered but the victim was unwilling to pay £315 for the DNA test and thus we are unable to say whether the semen came from the accused. In light of this we would suggest a reduced charge of sexual harassment.

Theo checked the database. Sexual harassment had various subcategories, but the most he could levy was £780 for a first-time offence.

At first a lot of people had been excited by the indemnity system, until it emerged that the profits raised from prosecuting crimes were almost entirely eaten up by administrative costs from the various companies contracted to manage the cases.

Corporate Police, much more reliable than the tiny rump of Civic Police accessible by the uninsured or through NGO charity funding, had shareholders to consider when they invoiced for an investigation. The TV always showed the glamour, never the paperwork—forensics was expensive, best deployed only on really profitable cases.

Corporate rehabilitation centres had a similar problem. As corporati