Titanium Noir

Contents Cover Other Titles Title Page Copyright Contents Dedication Epigraph Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Acknowledgements A Note About the Author Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Contents Start Copyright Print Page List c iii iv v vii 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 239 241 
 
 
 
 
 ALSO BY NICK HARKAWAY
 Fiction
 Gnomon
 Tigerman
 Angelmaker
 The Gone-Away World
 Nonfiction
 The Blind Giant: Being Human in a Digital World
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This Is a Borzoi Book
 Published by Alfred A. Knopf
 Copyright © 2023 by Nick Harkaway
 All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
 www.aaknopf.com
 Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Harkaway, Nick, [date]- author.
 Title: Titanium noir : a novel / Nick Harkaway.
 Description: First Edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2023]
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022035735 | ISBN 9780593535363 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593535370 (ebook)
 Classification: LCC PR6108.A737 T58 2023 | DDC 823/.92—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2022035735
 Ebook ISBN 9780593535370
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 Cover illustration and design by Jack Smyth
 ep_prh_6.1_143455484_c0_r0
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Also by Nick Harkaway
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 
 
 Chapter 1
 
 
 Chapter 2
 
 
 Chapter 3
 
 
 Chapter 4
 
 
 Chapter 5
 
 
 Chapter 6
 
 
 Chapter 7
 
 
 Acknowledgements
 A Note About the Author
 
 
 _143455484_
 
 
 
 For Clare,
 Clemency
 and Tom
 —my everything.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 You can keep the things of bronze and stone and give me one man to remember me just once a year.
 —Damon Runyon
 
 
 
 
 
 1
 Giles Gratton, sick as a dog from nineteen years spent sleeping in the off hours between bloody murder rooms and the aldermen’s bullshit, doesn’t knock.
 “Get your coat,” he says.
 “Hi, Captain.”
 “Yeah, all that.”
 I get my coat and hold the door for him.
 “Hi, Cal,” Gratton says.
 We go down the stairs together. No need to waste a perfectly good bit of bad news with conversation.
 
 —
 We’re in the wrong part of town for something in my line. Not that it’s nasty, it’s just not perfect. The people I deal with are up there, not down here. Gratton drops me at the building but doesn’t come in.
 “I’ve already seen it.”
 “You got any idea?”
 He shakes his head. “Just that it’s your thing.”
 “Confirmed?”
 “No, but if you get in there and you think I’m wrong, you can keep the money and go back to bed.”
 I walk through the lobby and take the stairs up to the third floor. Every single step is shiny clean and smells of off-brand Limonene.
 Inside the apartment, the dead nerd lies on the floor. There’s a hole in his head, small and smudged with grey ash and a light burn. A close-range shooting: an execution or a suicide. There’s some blood, blowback from the moment of impact, but the round must still be inside him. Small calibre, low power. Just enough to do the job.
 Down by his feet, Musgrave the city doctor is fussing with a tablet: the police network is achingly slow. Other than that there’s not a lot going on. Murder rooms are like train stations at midnight, not much left to do before the last departure.
 The nerd looks about forty-five with no habits. He’s got dark hair cut nerd style, he’s wearing a nerd shirt, button-down, with little hooks for a clip-tie stitched under the collar. Nerd slacks too high at the waist and too short at the ankle, and nerd shoes from an artisan place in the market, with orthotic inserts. The thick soles complete the anti-chic vibe. This was how he lived, wardrobe like an old guy and no mind to be anything else.
 There’s a lounge chair in front of the big window. I figure he sat there and looked out, so I go and do that too. I can feel the ghost of him in the cushions, pressed down and permanently shaped by his weight. Forensics have come and gone ages ago, but still