The Administration Series (190 page)

The Int-Sec complex had been reopened to cars, provided they had the proper clearance, so they were able to drive right up to the main I&I entrance. When it came to it — getting out of the car and walking up to the doors — Sara began to wish she hadn't been so insistent about coming back. Part of her acknowledged that the longer she left it, the harder it would be. Part of her said it was too hard already and she should have stayed at the flat.

However, Carnac had said it: it was her decision, and she'd made it now.

Even so, at the doors she almost bottled out and called the car back. And again when she saw the Service guards, and again at the lifts. They walked through the building, and she felt her stomach churning with every step. She tried to distract herself by looking at Toreth, wondering what he was thinking.

It didn't seem to bother him at all. He was happy to be here, where he belonged. He nodded to the Service guards as they passed them, and one or two even returned the greeting.

He'd said in the car that he'd been down to the cells yesterday and found Chevril. The same cell where he'd been held, the same places where he'd been beaten up and threatened. He must have been frightened at times, when it was happening, but now it was over the unpleasant memories seemed to have faded more quickly than the bruises. Part of his general disconnectedness from the things normal people would feel, and something she envied right now.

She'd be all right, though, as long as she could stay upstairs. She couldn't face the idea of the interrogation levels. Nor could she think of a way of explaining to Toreth that she couldn't.

He could manage to be sympathetic enough, when things weren't too busy and it was a case of taking her out for a drink and some ego-restoring flirting after she'd been dumped by a boyfriend. Even then she was sure he wasn't listening to her complaints most of the time, although he always seemed attentive. That was one of his tricks, handy for pickups, but she appreciated that he cared enough to do it for her, time and again, without expecting anything in return.

However, that was outside work, and this was inside. He'd expect her to cope because he wanted and needed her to, and as far as he was concerned that was what mattered. After the fuss she'd made about coming in, she'd just have to brave it out and hope she'd be kept busy at her desk.

The first thing she discovered, when they reached the office, was that her desk had been looted and presumably had also been in use the day before — someone had had a stab at tidying it up and she didn't imagine Toreth would have done it. Most of her remaining possessions had been cleared and piled in a box beside the desk. On top lay her coffee mug, crushed flat. She picked it up, feeling suddenly and stupidly tearful. It had been a present from her sister, when Sara had first started work here.

Toreth would have a fit if he came out if his office and found her snivelling over a mug. She should have thrown it out before anyway — the heater in it had been broken for years. She dropped it into the recycling, wondering as she did so whether the system was even functional.

It took her fifteen minutes to get her desk straightened out and scavenge round the office to find replacements for the lost and broken items. She borrowed Kel's coffee mug — she could give it back to him when he came back. If he . . . she put it back on his desk and started looking for unbroken pencils.

Once she felt that her territory was her own again, she set to work. Despite Toreth's warnings on the way in, the systems were partially functional. She found his messages — which he clearly hadn't had time to deal with yesterday — and started sorting through them. Many had been rendered redundant by the events of the past few days, and some of them were . . . unusual.

While she worked, she managed to forget the emptiness of the office, but when she'd finished and looked up it hit her all over again. She could have called through to his office, as she normally would have done, but she fancied seeing another person. She tapped on his office door and opened it.

Toreth was leaning back in a chair at an alarming angle — it was one of the admin chairs and they weren't designed for that kind of thing. He had his feet on the desk and was throwing a pencil up into the air and catching it one-handed. He held up his other hand and she stopped on the threshold.

"Yes, Major. Yes. Yes, naturally I understand. Ah . . . one moment, please." He caught the pencil and muted the comm. "Get me a coffee, would you? Use the machine in Tillotson's office — it's the only working one I've found."

As she left, she heard him sigh, then the conversation start up again. "Sorry about that, Major. You were saying?"

She found the coffee, took Tillotson's official I&I-logoed visitors' mugs, and liberated the biscuit supply from his desk. When she returned, Toreth was still talking.

"Yes, of course. Major, I'm terribly sorry, I have to go. Yes, it is urgent. I'll keep you informed."

He cut the connection and took out the earpiece. "Jesus, that woman can
talk
."

"Who was it?"

"Major Bell. Service liaison stroke officer in charge stroke pain in the neck. Next time she calls, I'll connect her through to Carnac and maybe they'll talk each other to death." He took the coffee and waved for her to sit down as he took a sip. "Mmm. Thanks. Anyway, I managed to piss her off yesterday without even meeting her — now she's giving
me
grief without even being back in the building. All because I made her Service troopers get off their backsides and help down in Detention. What did you want?"

Company. "There's a pile of messages in the system. I've shoved all the ones from . . . well, everything that was to do with cases and so on from before, I've put aside. I've had a look at all the ones which have come in since, sorted them by priority and left them for you. And . . . " She hesitated.

"What?"

"Well, there are some messages from your mother."

"Very funny." Not that he looked as if he thought it was.

"No, seriously. There are. Half a dozen."

"Did you read them?"

"Of course not!"

"Well, read them now and let me know if it's anything important."

She briefly thought about suggesting he read them himself. It wasn't as if either of his parents sent messages every day. Or, in fact, ever. "Fine. And Carnac," the bastard, "wants to see you at ten-thirty, about the start of the tribunals. That's all."

"Good. I've got things to do first. I'm going down to Medical to — " His eyes widened. "Damn, I forgot to call Elena. Okay, I'm going down to Medical as soon as I've got hold of
her
."

Back at her desk she called up the messages from Toreth's mother and read them. They weren't long, but they were interesting. The first one, which must have slipped through during a brief period of comms function the day after the coup, was a cold couple of lines asking him to get in touch. By the last one the tone was more frantic — she must have heard about the disaster at I&I from somewhere. Sara wondered why she'd kept sending them here after that, then realised it would be the only contact they had for him.

Nice of them to worry, she supposed, but it was probably a bit late in the day to show that they gave a shit.

She'd been with Toreth on probably the last occasion he'd seen his parents. Years ago now — nine, maybe. Even back then they didn't know his address, as he'd warned her on the way over.

"So don't fucking tell them," he'd said tightly. "Either of them. Otherwise I'll have to move again."

Only curiosity stopped her finding an excuse to back out at that point.

The odd thing was they weren't even that
bad
, at least not while she was there. Cold, distant and unloving, but nothing like the ogres in the picture she'd drawn for herself from his occasional cryptic comments and obvious loathing. They'd introduced themselves by their first names — Glynis and David — but Sara had felt oddly reluctant to use those in front of Toreth.

As she remembered it the visit had been for his birthday, but after so long she couldn't be sure because there had been no kind of celebration. No cake, no other family or friends. The four of them sat in the silence of the ferociously neat flat, where cups were whisked away as soon as they were empty. The only homey touch was half a dozen photographs on the walls of a golden-haired child, from a few months old to three or four years. She'd wondered if they were of Toreth, but hadn't dared comment on them. The largest, over the mantelpiece, had a vase of fresh, expensively real flowers beneath it.

His mother asked Sara about herself, then quickly lost interest once she mentioned I&I. His father said virtually nothing. She remembered Toreth sitting beside her on the sofa, so tense that she could see the pulse beating in his temple.

Clearest of all was the departure. Toreth stood up suddenly, looked at his watch, and announced that they were leaving. His parents hadn't seemed in the least surprised. Only his mother came to the door with them. No kiss, no goodbye hug, both omissions unimaginable to Sara.

He opened the door, hesitated, and turned back to look at his mother, smiling for the first time.

"Bitch," he said, absolutely calmly. No inflection at all. "Fucking bitch."

He didn't wait for a reaction, but Sara saw not a flicker of emotion on the woman's face as she watched her son stride away. Sara had never been able to decide whether it was iron control, or genuine indifference, although she preferred to believe the former.

Too shocked to move, Sara stayed frozen to the spot in the hallway, until she came to her senses, muttered something she couldn't recall, and fled.

She caught up with Toreth outside, walking quickly, his hands in his pockets. He didn't looked round or slow his pace. She had to skip every few steps to keep up with him.

It took her a few minutes to think of something to say. "You don't have to go there."

He stopped dead. "What?"

"You don't have to go and see them. They can't make you."

It was the first time that he really frightened her. His face twisted with fury, his shoulders jerking back as if raising the fists still in his pockets, before he regained control and all expression vanished.

"It's none of your fucking business," he said in the same dispassionate tone he'd used at the flat.

She remembered the hot silence in the sunlit street around them, noticing that there was no one in sight, and how badly she wanted to run. Instead, scraping together all her courage, she took a deep breath. "No, of course not. Sorry. I just — I just thought I'd say, because I . . . because you . . . " The sentence dried up under his icy stare. "Sorry."

After a moment, he shrugged and turned away. "Doesn't matter."

He started walking again, much slower. She fell into step beside him, and eventually slipped her arm through his, trying to work out why the hell he'd wanted her to come with him in the first place. A shield maybe. How might things have gone at the flat if she hadn't been there?

He didn't say anything else until they reached the train station.

Before they went through to the platform, he bought her an ice cream, without even asking her if she wanted one. Three scoops, chocolate sprinkles and little pink marshmallows on top, the whole thing slathered in toffee sauce.

As he handed it over, he said, "You're right — they can't."

That had been that — the end of the conversation and, as far as she knew, of his contact with them.

Sara thought about her own parents and her sister, who'd been almost embarrassingly happy to see her yesterday. Her father had cried, holding her so tight that she could hardly breathe, and his tears had set first her off, and then her mother and Fee. Everyone crying and laughing at the same time, so much noise and fuss. Even Rob had been dragged into it, hugged firmly by her mother in his role as saviour, despite his protests that all he'd done was drive round with her and be scratched by Bastard. That had led into the (edited) story of Warrick's heroic rescue mission to I&I and — and she didn't want to think about that too much.

However hard she tried, she couldn't imagine hating her parents, not at all.

She was debating whether to pass the notes on or just let him know what they said, when Toreth's door opened. He stood in the doorway, hands braced against the frame, and glanced around the room. There was no one else there.

"Well?" he asked, expressionless.

"She wants to know if you're all right." Should she say anything else? Probably not. "She sounds worried."

His face didn't alter. "Does she really. Well . . . "

"Shall I let her know?"

"No." She waited. "Yes. Or . . . look, you can tell her whatever the hell you like."

I
don't want to tell her anything. "I'll take care of it."

"Thanks." He disappeared again.

First person or third? she wondered, as she started the reply. First might encourage a response, and she didn't intend to spend the rest of her life impersonating Toreth.

She made several false starts, distracted by something she couldn't put her finger on, before she realised what was wrong.