The Administration Series (26 page)

Somehow, Warrick's unexpected insight into this only further strengthened her conviction that he would never willingly accept the dangers of the sim. And so neither would the sponsors, not unless another disaster forced their hands.

Marian sighed, and closed the files. She had an appointment scheduled with Tara Scrivin which she couldn't miss.

The call for Toreth to go in to I&I came just after four on Monday morning. When he arrived, he found Sara already there. She stood up when she saw him, her eyes wide with excitement.

"Is it really Pearl Nissim?" he asked her, and she nodded. "
Legislator
Pearl Nissim?"

"One and the same," she said.

Stupid question. It was hardly a common name, and the woman was connected to the investigation already. From now on, SimTech would have to sink or swim without their patron in the European Legislature. He felt an unaccountable urge to laugh, although it wasn't funny at all.

"Fucking hell," he said.

"Found dead in her sim machine, just like the other two." Sara waited for a comment, before adding, "Do you want to go out to Strasbourg or send someone from the team?"

Toreth pulled himself together. "For a Legislator? I think that merits a personal appearance. Besides, one of the local bastards will claim it if I don't show. Send a message to I&I and Justice over there and tell them it's
mine
. And get hold of Tillotson or Jenny and get something saying the same sent in his name."

"He's done it already."

"What?"

"Tillotson left a message before I got in — you've got full authority over there."

"Right. Get me a flight as soon as possible and I want O'Reilly and her team as well. I'll dig out an investigator to go with me."

Sara nodded and Toreth went past her into his office and closed the door behind him.

He sat down at his desk, half his mind running through what needed doing, and half stunned by the news. Teffera had been one thing, but this was in a new league. The murder of an Administration higher-up — damn nearly highest-up, in fact — wasn't something a para got a chance at solving every day.

Even less frequently when it was their fault. When he'd thrown out his bait, he'd expected another death at the AERC. Another student, or maybe one of the more senior staff. Better hope Tillotson never found out about
this
one.

Shaking off the distraction, he called Barret-Connor. When the investigator finally answered the comm he was wrapped in a startlingly pink duvet. Possibly not his own — in the background Toreth could make out female legs, from the knees down.

B-C's cropped blond hair was far too short to rumple, but his bleary-eyed face made up for it. "Um . . . Para?"

"We have a new body. Get in here, and bring some clothes — we're going to Strasbourg."

"
Now
, Para?" The legs behind him stirred, and Toreth heard a faint, sleepy protest over the comm. He almost sympathised with B-C — they were the kind of legs he wouldn't like to be torn away from himself.

"Look on the bright side — we'll get there just in time to start work."

On the flight over, with Barret-Connor sleeping in the seat beside him, Toreth read the Legislator's security file. Not something he often saw, although it actually made disappointingly tame reading.

Nissim was in her early sixties, although from the picture she could have been ten years younger. Her family background was respectable Administration — her father had also worked for the European Legislature, although his career had ended at a rank below his daughter's. After a brief stint in the Department of Science, Pearl Nissim had transferred to the Legislature. Over the next forty years she had progressed smoothly and unremarkably through the ranks until, to no one's surprise, she reached her current position in charge of Science and Technology legislation.

The Council of the European Administration might be the nominal head of state, and the heads of department might actually run the government through the Bureau of Administrative Departments, but the Legislature, as the body that drafted the law, had more than its share of power.

When the stranglehold of the Department of Security had been broken by the reorganisation, there had been rumours that the Bureau also planned to split up the Legislature. It never happened. Who, so the joke ran at the time, would have made the necessary changes in the law?

The Legislature was also a point of contact (or collision) between government and corporation. Although it happened very rarely, the Legislature was one of the departments where corporate sabotage killings occasionally spilled over into the Administration.

Normally, Toreth would have had no trouble thinking of a handful of reasons why someone might want a European Legislature head of division dead. However, Nissim's security file produced no obvious suspects. No scandals, no mysterious backers, no overt ties to any major corporation.

After he'd read the file again, Toreth called up the files for Teffera and Jarvis and paged through them. At first glance it would be difficult to find files more different — a major corporate, a graduate student and a division head. However, looking past the details, they gave him a strong feeling of similarity.

All highly respectable. All almost unnaturally well liked by their peers. Jarvis had the most exciting black mark against her, and that was the unforeseen consequence of trying to help a friend.

Toreth stared out of the plane window at the dawn sky. Everything about the deaths screamed either natural causes or technical fault. It screamed it so loudly, in fact, that it only strengthened Toreth's belief to the contrary.

At Strasbourg airport, two local branch I&I cars and an investigator met them and took them straight to Nissim's residence. On the way, he discovered that, as with Teffera, the body had been moved to a hospital for futile attempts at resuscitation. Worse, the local forensics team had already swept through Nissim's home. Tillotson's note clearly hadn't been explicit or emphatic enough. As soon as they arrived at the house, Toreth sent O'Reilly and her team on in the cars to the local I&I office to wrest control of the evidence and at least supervise the post-mortem and sample analysis.

Senior Administration officials didn't achieve the same luxury of accommodation as senior corporates, but the house was in an exclusive residential area close to the Legislature complex. The place was crawling with investigators and security: private guards, Legislature guards and Service troopers. They all had the desperate busyness of people well aware that the horse had long since departed, and that whoever left the stable door unbolted was about to catch all kinds of holy hell.

Toreth recognised the first man they met inside — Clemens Keilholtz. The recognition, however, wasn't instant. The Legislator's death had hit him hard. However, while shock and grief tended to dull people's expressions, in Keilholtz's case they had supplied some character to his previously nondescript face. His suit was rumpled — yesterday's clothes, in Toreth's experienced judgement.

Once again, he looked pleased — or perhaps this time relieved — to see Toreth, and Toreth had the impression that the man had been waiting for him.

Keilholtz's first words confirmed the guess. "I heard you were coming."

"When did you find out about the Legislator's death?"

"I was there when it happened." He said it with the unconscious ease of someone who hasn't thought through what that might mean.

"You were in the room?"

"No. Or rather, yes. Next door. We'd both been in the sim — " And now he hesitated.

It couldn't have been more obvious if Keilholtz had worn an advertising screen. "Go on."

"Ah, there isn't an easy way of explaining this, Para-investigator."

Easy enough — you were fucking her. Toreth looked around the busy hallway. He wanted to take control of the situation here, but he also wanted to get a clear story from Keilholtz in person and as soon as possible.

"Excuse me, Mr Keilholtz." Toreth took Barret-Connor by the arm and moved him a few steps away.

"Go round the place, find out who the hell everyone is and get rid of anyone we don't need. Try and cut it back to I&I only."

"Yes, Para."

When B-C had gone, Toreth returned to his witness. "Shall we go somewhere quieter?"

Keilholtz nodded gratefully and showed Toreth through a doorway into a small, sparsely furnished sitting room. An open door showed a kitchen, and another led into a tiny hallway off which two more doors were visible.

"My flat," Keilholtz said. "Can I get you anything?"

Toreth let him fetch them both a drink while he set up the camera and had a brief snoop round. The other doors revealed a bedroom with a single bed, and a bathroom with dust on the shower floor. A place to give the illusion of propriety, not a home.

After Keilholtz set down the coffee pot and cups and sat opposite him, Toreth said, "I think you were about to tell me that you and the Legislator had a relationship?"

A little of the tension eased from his shoulders. "Yes."

"For how long?"

Keilholtz poured the coffee, his hand steady, and offered Toreth a cup.

"Nearly four years. It would've been our anniversary next month. Before you ask, few people know about it. A handful of people at the Legislature, one or two close friends . . ." He rubbed his eyes — tired, not tearful. "It's inevitable it will come out now, though, isn't it? Pearl hated gossip."

He'd dropped the 'Legislator'. "Why did you keep it a secret?"

"Why do you think?" He smiled wryly. "It would've drawn a great deal of prurient attention. Neither of us wanted that."

"How old are you, Mr Keilholtz?"

Keilholtz clearly expected the question, even if he didn't welcome it. "Thirty-one," he said tonelessly. "Exactly half Pearl's age."

There wasn't an easy way of asking his next question, so Toreth didn't try to be too tactful. "Is that why you were with her in the sim?"

He nodded. "I should say — I want to say that
I
had no problems at all with the situation. I much preferred sex in the real world, to tell you the truth. If you haven't been with someone in the sim, it's difficult to explain it. It lacks intimacy. Perhaps it's just me, but I'm always aware that my body is elsewhere, and alone. But outside the sim, Pearl was, well, self-conscious. It spoiled things for her, and I hated that. So we compromised — we alternated between the two."

Taking turns in the real world and the sim. It gave Toreth a twinge of unease, thinking of his own recent dabbling. He pulled his mind firmly back to the case.

"Yesterday evening. Was there anyone else in the house?"

"No. The usual security people, that's all. We tried to keep Sunday nights for ourselves — Pearl was always so busy, it was hard to make time. I was with her at work, of course, but that's not the same."

"Could anyone else get into the room while you were in the sim?"

"No. The security is quite extraordinary; it has to be, for commercial reasons. The sim room has no windows, the walls, floor and ceiling are reinforced, there is an access security system — the door opens only for the two of us. I'm sure someone will be able to give you the details. In any case, the only entrance is through Pearl's bedroom — " he stumbled over the words, and then cleared his throat and carried on before Toreth could comment. "And the door to the bedroom was locked. It was still locked afterwards. No one could have got even as far as there."

"Except for the security officers, presumably?"

"Well . . . well, yes, I suppose so." Keilholtz flushed faintly. "I'm sorry, I didn't think of them."

Toreth smiled. "You'd be surprised how many people don't. People are the weak point in any system. What time did you go in?"

"After dinner. About eight-thirty." Keilholtz glanced at the watch on his left wrist — expensive make, Toreth noted, and wondered if it were a gift. "One of the security guards helped us into the sim. It was the usual routine, I think — I let him into the sim room, and we settled into the couches right away. All he did was tighten the straps and lower the visors, and then he left."

"How can you be sure he went?"

Keilholtz paused, then smiled wryly. "I'm making assumptions again, yes. I don't know, because I was in the sim. But the security system will have recorded everything."

"Do you remember his name?"

"I —" He narrowed his eyes. "Byrne, I think. I don't know his first name. He's a Legislature guard."

Toreth paused to call B-C and pass on the name, watching his witness while he did so. Keilholtz filled their cups again, slowly stirring a spoonful of sugar into his own, spending too long on the process. Hardly suspicious — a killer and a bereaved lover would both have reasons to be uneasy as the time to recount the death approached.

Call completed, he said, "Go on."

"We were in there for three hours, maybe a little more. Do you — " Keilholtz looked down at his cup, then up again. "Do you need to know what we did?"

"I'm afraid so."